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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
The Market Basket saga: This time, the family feud is over succession. Will employees and shoppers care?
Write to us at . To subscribe, . TODAY'S STARTING POINT Will this be another summer of protest for Market Basket employees and customers? Don't count on it, says Tom Kochan, the MIT Sloan School of Management professor who wrote a Here are the CliffsNotes: Demoulas ( Now Good Arthur is once again on the outs Advertisement 'It would be hard to envision a mass protest because this does come across as a Not only that, but pandemic-era inflation has driven up grocery prices and squeezed household budgets. Switching from the bargains at Market Basket to a pricier chain like Stop & Shop might be a tough sell these days. Advertisement The and daughter, Madeline, who both work at Market Basket, while it investigates whether Demoulas is orchestrating a work stoppage to retaliate against the board. 'The issues of succession are not a matter of one family or another, but about responsible stewardship of a large successful company so that it's around and remains the same great company for the next 100 years,' Jay Hachigian, chair of the Market Basket board, said in a statement. 'Despite repeated requests over an extended period of time, the 70-year-old CEO has not allowed the Board to discuss succession planning or to even meet the children he wants to put in charge.' Demoulas's sisters — Frances, Glorianne, and Caren — have sway since together they own about 60 percent of the company, while he controls just 28 percent. The sisters also have children who work at the company. It's easy to see why succession is important: The chain, Justine Griffin, a spokesperson for Arthur T. Demoulas, said he has not only discussed succession with the board 'on many occasions,' but has also recommended that his son and daughter succeed him. Advertisement 'The bottom line is — it is not that he has not offered a succession plan,' Griffin said. 'It is that other shareholders do not like it." So how will the latest Demoulas drama end? Kochan of MIT expects the warring factions to end up in court, which has become a 'We need fewer lawyers here,' he added. 🧩 5 Down: 77° POINTS OF INTEREST The Metfern Cemetery served the Metropolitan State Hospital and the Fernold School, with 310 burials from 1947 to 1979. Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff Boston and Massachusetts 'A celebration of freedom and love': As an LGBTQ+ Pride flag flew above Boston City Hall, Mayor Michelle Wu Karen Read retrial: The defense called a forensic pathologist who testified that the scratches on John O'Keefe's arm Out of state: Pennsylvania's US senators debated in Dorchester as part of a forum meant to foster bipartisanship. Democrat John Fetterman and Republican David McCormick clashed over Trump's legislative agenda, but Act fast: Everett's mayor, already under fire for allegedly giving himself bonuses, hired an aide as a $550-an-hour city spokesperson two years ago after giving rival public relations firms Lost stories: Thousands of people who were institutionalized and abused in state-run schools, hospitals, and residential facilities are buried in nameless graves like the one in the photo above. A report urged Massachusetts Payday: The attorney general fined sushi restaurant Zuma inside the Four Seasons Hotel for illegally requiring service workers to share pooled tips with managers. Some workers New England R.I. defamation case: A former teacher sued an all-boys Catholic high school and the Diocese of Providence for allegedly failing to investigate a teacher for using a classroom computer to arrange sexual encounters. A jury Gun control: The Supreme Court rejected a legal challenge to Rhode Island's ban on large-capacity magazines and Maryland's ban on semiautomatic rifles. ( Look up: The Northern Lights will be Trump administration Higher power: The administration asked the Supreme Court to let it lay off federal workers en masse. ( Storms brewing: FEMA director David Richardson said during a briefing that he didn't know the US had a hurricane season, leaving staffers baffled. An administration spokesperson suggested Richardson was joking. ( Motivation: Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, defended the Medicaid cuts in Trump's tax bill by saying, 'We all are going to die.' A Democrat says the remark spurred him to challenge her. ( Open arms: The US welcomed a second group of white South Africans under an administration refugee program that alleges racially motivated persecution. ( Off air: GBH is laying off 45 employees, 6 percent of its staff, The Nation and the World Diddy trial: A woman who used to work as the music mogul's personal assistant testified that she hadn't accused him of sexual assault sooner because she was 'terrified and brainwashed.' ( No. 2 vs. No. 1: New York's lieutenant governor will challenge Governor Kathy Hochul in next year's Democratic primary. Their relationship frayed over Joe Biden's reelection bid. ( Mount Etna: The volcano on the Italian island of Sicily erupted, sending tourists fleeing and plumes of ash into the sky. BESIDE THE POINT By Teresa Hanafin 🎵 Summer concerts: From The Weeknd to Morgan Wallen to The Who (they're still around?), here are 🐛 WARNING: Do not read this story unless you are OK seeing a picture of a mite squirming on somebody's skin. Every night, it and dozens of its friends crawl out of your pores and party. Here's why that's not a bad thing. ( 💸 Miss Conduct archives: Back in 2015, T.Z. of Brookline didn't tip more than the leftover change for coffee at Starbucks or for takeout. 🥗 Revisiting plastic wrap: Does it really work when it comes to keeping food safe? Yes. But it may not be safe to use in the microwave. ( Advertisement 🧑🍳 Cooking stories: Sheryl Julian likes cookbooks that reflect the writer and have personal appeal. Here are 🥘 Father's Day menu: Give Dad a break from grilling 🏈 Tribute: His former teammates heaped praise on Patriots center David Andrews 🗑️ Eat inside, tourist: Visitors who marvel at the pristine streets of Japan are baffled by the lack of trash cans. Stop eating on the street, say residents. ( Thanks for reading Starting Point. NOTE: A 🎁 emoji indicates a gift link. A $ is a subscription site that does not offer gift links. This newsletter was edited and produced by ❓ Have a question for the team? Email us at ✍🏼 If someone sent you this newsletter, you can 📬 Delivered Monday through Friday. Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at
San Francisco Chronicle
27-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Is your money in good hands with an AI financial adviser?
The global market turbulence of the past few months sparked by President Donald Trump's shifting tariff policies has provoked anxiety for many people worried about their 401(k)s and other savings but perhaps lacking the expertise to understand their options to keep their money safe and their investments growing. Financial advisers are the traditional source of that expertise, but it carries a price tag that some personal investors might not feel they can afford. As artificial intelligence becomes smarter and more human-like, could a machine potentially take on the role of a financial adviser — at little or no cost? 'One of the biggest challenges that we face in finance is financial advice,' said Andrew Lo, professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 'How do we deal with various different investors' needs to manage their portfolio to achieve certain objectives?' I spoke to AI and financial experts, as well as founders of some Bay Area-based companies that say their AI-powered products can offer users personalized financial advice. What I found is that AI is getting close to being able to do the job of a financial adviser, but the technology is not quite there yet. Welcome to Hella Expensive, a column designed to help readers navigate the financial aspects of living in the Bay Area. I'll be keeping an eye on current issues, trends and what's going on with the overall economic outlook — but I also want to hear from you. Send your financial questions and concerns to me through the survey below, or email me at Financial advisers are hired to help their clients plan their financial futures and manage their money. The decision to hire a financial adviser is a very personal one. It can be motivated by concerns about your money and investments during periods of market volatility or economic uncertainty. It can often come during a major life event, such as buying a home, saving up for your children's college tuition or planning for retirement. You may be someone looking to increase their financial literacy, or you're a high-net-worth individual. The fees for a financial adviser can vary. Some are paid only from the services they provide, while others receive client fees as well as commissions from the products they sell. According to a report from advisery HQ, the average financial adviser fee was 1.02% of a client's assets in 2023. So if you have $300,000 in an account, you can expect to pay about $3,060 in fees. How much can an AI chatbot tell me? AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot continue to undergo refinements to make them more accurate and sophisticated. So how far have they gotten in the realm of dispensing financial advice? Lo is also director of the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, and has been researching this very question with a team of five students, using large language models (LLMs) or AI programs that can understand and generate human language. Their research has identified three primary challenges for LLMs to act as financial advisers. The easiest to overcome is ensuring that LLMs have the body of knowledge required for the task. They are already about 90% of the way there, Lo said. The second hurdle, according to Lo, is 'can large language models take information from a human and use that information to customize financial advice so that it is suitable for them?' He said providing such individually appropriate advice is part of an adviser's responsibility, and if they don't do that, they could have their license revoked or perhaps even be prosecuted criminally. LLMs can currently take a person's circumstances such as their income, savings and financial goals, and come up with a relatively solid financial plan, according to Lo. He said his team has been training LLMs on a database of individual financial circumstances, and it's in the testing phase now. But there is more to refine, and Lo said the researchers are about 80% done. 'The third and I think the most challenging problem is the issue of ethics and morality when it comes to providing advice to a human client,' Lo said. In the financial realm, this is known as fiduciary duty. A financial adviser is required by law to put the interest of their clients ahead of their own, Lo said. While they can certainly charge them a fee for their services, it 'has to be secondary to the client's best interest.' 'You and I know what that means, but how do you explain that to a machine?' Lo said. 'So we have been working on the whole notion of ethical behavior, both human and ultimately AI, and try to understand what kind of guardrails we need, what kind of intelligence are we talking about in terms of the artificial.' He said his team is in the very early stages of solving this issue, working with 'large amounts of historical information regarding various kinds of ethical dilemmas that have plagued financial advisers.' With that information, Lo believes his team can create an ethics and fiduciary model to ensure the advice given is in the best interest of the client. Brian Stormont, managing partner and financial adviser for Insight Wealth Strategies in San Ramon, said AI could be 'very beneficial' to a do-it-yourself type person. As a user of AI, he said, sometimes answers to financial issues are 'quite precise.' But overall he's found 'interactions to be all over the map in terms of satisfaction.' 'For many people, the financial landscape is still so multi-faceted,' he wrote in an email. 'People will need someone who can translate their personal situation and objectives into actionable task items and set them on the right path.' Personalizing financial advice The financial world has been embracing AI in a number of ways, with many large institutions now offering customers access to AI assistants and robo-advisers. Some Bay Area-based startups market themselves as the alternative to hiring a pricey financial adviser. Users connect their brokerage and bank accounts to the platform, and can receive some basic services. If they upgrade to a membership fee, they can get customized financial and investment recommendations. Mezzi, a financial management app, is described by CEO and co-founder Manish Jain as 'an AI wealth copilot.' It currently offers only a paid annual membership to build wealth, but Jain said a free plan is in the works. 'Mezzi provides proactive, real-time insights and 24/7 answers for portfolio management, diversification, risk reduction, and tax savings on demand to build and manage wealth,' Jain wrote in an email. 'One of our core offerings is like a private ChatGPT for your portfolio that leverages your background and goals to provide you with personalized insights.' Jain said Mezzi 'leverages AI' to educate and inform users, and offer ideas and suggestions, 'but the user remains in control and makes all final decisions about their investments. He said using AI alone, such as through a chatbot, could be susceptible to hallucinations, and doesn't provide live financial markets data. 'We've done a lot of heavy lifting to leverage brokerage and market data to deliver insights in a deterministic and accurate way, so we don't have to rely on an LLM like ChatGPT to deliver what could be a potentially inaccurate answer,' he said. Mezzi uses a hybrid approach of blending LLMs with conventional data and information systems to increase accuracy, he said. According to Jain, Mezzi offers information and suggestions with 'complete transparency' and doesn't recommend any financial products for a commission, therefore avoiding conflicts of interest. 'Mezzi is best for people who want to be the final decision maker, but looking to be better informed while saving time and money,' he said. In 2021 Alexander Harmsen sold his previous company, Iris Automation. He bought a home in the Bay Area and started his family, and figured it was time to find a financial adviser. But he felt like they were salespeople with too many clients, trying to sell him expensive funds. 'I wanted an adviser in the true sense of the word adviser,' he said, who could help him with everything from estate planning to managing his net worth. So he built his own platform instead called PortfolioPilot, which uses a complex hybrid AI approach. It incorporates many different models including LLMs as well as a dynamic factor model, which the 'Fed uses to model our interest rates, credit conditions, GDP and inflation,' according to Harmsen. 'As people interact with the product, it becomes more and more personalized,' he said. Users answer 10 onboarding questions about their goals and preferences, then connect their investment accounts. Harmsen said they can get a financial report card for free, and if they want more personalized financial advice, they can sign up for a membership. PortfolioPilot services include investment recommendations, tax impacts, access to an AI assistant and estate planning. He said the advice can range from the medium term of what to do over the next year, to the very long term and how to get yourself set up for retirement. But for these financial service platforms to be useful, users need to have accumulated some wealth. Jain said Mezzi's average user tends to be someone who has 'started to accumulate some complexity' with multiple accounts and growing wealth — generally Millennials and Gen-Xers with $100,000 to $5 million in net worth. And while the platforms can be helpful for financial literacy and recommendations, professional help is likely still needed for more complex matters. Jain said Mezzi's insights are 'restricted to personal wealth management of liquid assets,' and doesn't handle tax filing, estate planning or business tax analysis. 'We suggest users consult a tax expert or financial planner if they want insights beyond Mezzi's current scope or if they want someone else to make the decisions and take action,' he said, such as investing or moving money. Harmsen said while their offerings are 'pretty robust,' they are also 'very clear about the limitations and by no means promise certain returns,' he said, adding that the company has a compliance program to ensure it adheres to applicable laws, regulations and ethical standards. He wants to eventually build an entire ecosystem that includes partner CPAs, lawyers and other professionals to make wealth building more seamless for users. What's on the horizon Jain at Mezzi said some processes take a lot of engineering resources, which can be time-consuming and costly. 'Right now we can't rely on an AI agent to reliably recall and process information to produce high-level insights on its own with high accuracy,' he said. 'We spend a significant amount of time building processing and insights manually using conventional data science.' His hope is that systems will eventually be developed that eliminate the need for manual coding of processing and insight generation. Lo said after his team solves the three main challenges, their ultimate goal is to develop a financial adviser using an LLM and offer it for free to the public. It would benefit individuals who need it the most, particularly low-income people who can't afford to pay for financial advice. 'It won't do everything,' he said. 'Certainly it won't dispense the kind of advice that a high-net worth individual would need and like access to, but our view is that they're already being well served by financial institutions, so we don't need to solve that problem.' The LLMs would be trained similarly to how a junior financial adviser would be, Lo explained. A big obstacle is avoiding AI hallucinations. And once the software is complete, another major challenge would be getting regulators to sign off on it. The whole process could take three to five years. In the meantime, Lo's team plans to post a list of ideal prompts to use when asking AI chatbots for financial advice, which he hopes to do by year-end. Lo encourages people to spend time with an AI chatbot and 'get to know it.' Use different ones, as they each have their own 'quirks, strengths and weaknesses.' Ask it a lot of questions, starting with topics you are most familiar with such as your profession, to get a sense of how much the LLM actually knows. Then start asking financial questions to gauge accuracy and temperament.
Malaysian Reserve
06-05-2025
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Clear Admit MBA Fair 2025 in Boston, May 14th
One Night, 25 Elite MBA Programs: Clear Admit's Must-Attend Fair Hits Boston This May BOSTON, May 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Clear Admit is proud to announce the 2025 MBA Fair, set to take place on Wednesday, May 14th, from 5:00 to 8:00 PM at the MIT Sloan School of Management (Building E62) in Cambridge, MA. This highly anticipated event offers prospective MBA applicants a unique opportunity to connect directly with admissions officers from 25 top-ranked business schools, network with alumni, and gather valuable insights into the MBA application journey. Participating schools include Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB, Columbia Business School, Chicago Booth, Berkeley Haas, and many more leading programs from across the U.S. and internationally. In addition to the fair, attendees will benefit from a lineup of live, interactive panel discussions featuring admissions professionals, MBA alumni, and industry leaders. Panel Schedule: 5:20 – 5:45 PM – MBA Decoded: Who Goes, What You Learn, and Why It's Worth It 5:50 – 6:15 PM – Admissions Tips 1: What You've Done – Tests, Work & Activities 6:20 – 6:50 PM – From MBA to Bain: Breaking into Strategy Consulting 6:55 – 7:20 PM – Admissions Tips 2: What You Say – Goals, Essays & Interviews 7:25 – 7:55 PM – The Real Cost of an MBA – And How to Afford It The 2025 MBA Fair is hosted in collaboration with GMAC, Leland, and Juno, who will also be onsite to offer expert advice and support. The event is free to attend, but registration is required and space is limited. Secure your spot today: About Clear Admit: Clear Admit is a leading online resource and community for MBA applicants. With school-specific admissions news, application tips, and tools like LiveWire and ApplyWire, Clear Admit supports prospective students throughout their business school journey. For press inquiries or additional information, please contact: Victoria Pusiankova Marketing Specialist, Clear Admit victoria@ This press release was issued through For further information, visit View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Clear Admit
Telegraph
05-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Xi Jinping can't survive Trump's tariff pain
'Chinese society has an incredibly high capacity for pain,' Yasheng Huang of the MIT Sloan School of Management told the Wall Street Journal last month. And because China's people can supposedly 'eat bitterness', the phrase commonly used to describe the country's capacity to endure hardship, we are told that Chinese leaders have the luxury of looking past temporary adversity to think long term. Yes, both those notions were once true and both are accepted wisdom. But, no, they are no longer correct. In fact, China's society today is among the least resilient anywhere. Even before Donald Trump took the oath of office in January, the Chinese people were showing signs of disillusionment, despair, and anger. Now, with their economy probably contracting and their country caught up in a tense trade war, Chinese society is beginning to come under new stress. The regime certainly appears to be on edge, looking desperately to the past for ways to keep the population on side. On April 9, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning posted a Korean War-era video of Mao Zedong. 'No matter how long this war is going to last, we'll never yield,' Mao said in the clip from 1953. 'We will fight until we completely triumph.' Then on April 28, Beijing Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party's Beijing Municipal Committee, published an article titled 'Today, It Is Necessary to Revisit On Protracted War '. On Protracted War is a series of lectures Mao delivered in 1938 calling for the unity of the Chinese people in their struggle to defeat the invaders from Imperial Japan. China's regime has good reason to be worried about the mood of the Chinese people. The warning signs were plain to see. Due to the extraordinary Covid lockdowns and the subsequent failure of the economy to recover, people began withdrawing from society in large numbers. For many Chinese, it was the first time they had ever experienced a downturn. The last officially recognised recession had occurred in 1976. ''Lying flat,' 'Buddha whatever,' 'Kong Yijiism,' 'involution' – China today has so many memes for opting out,' wrote the University of Pennsylvania's Victor Mair in his July 2023 Language Log posting titled 'The Growing Supinity of Chinese Youth'. Since then, young Chinese have also been 'retiring' by leaving cities and taking up farming. Pessimism – even nihilism – accounts for the large number of Chinese people leaving their country for good and for the precipitous drop in birth rates. According to one estimate, China's total fertility rate last year was just 1.03, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. 'In this country, to love your child is to never let him be born in the first place,' read a comment posted on a Chinese site in 2023. Young Chinese, who refuse to have children, are calling themselves 'the last generation'. Many argue that the Communist Party's sophisticated social controls can keep the populace in line indefinitely, but the price of severe repression is volatility. The Chinese population, who most of the time have accepted repression, have periodically and unexpectedly exploded. Beginning in October 2022, for instance, large numbers of workers suddenly fled a Chinese manufacturing complex making iPhones in Zhengzhou, in central China. That incident was followed by spontaneous protests across the country. In November, chants of 'Step down, Xi Jinping' were heard on the streets of Shanghai. Eventually, the demonstrations died down, but the people of the People's Republic have a greater willingness to protest than is sometimes imagined. The Communist Party, as a result, feels insecure. That's especially true now as Trump's tariffs have hit Chinese workers hard. The US, after counting rerouted goods, takes almost 21 per cent of China's exports. Export-oriented factories are reported to be closing and worker protests are said to have become common across the country. The regime fears mass protests because the Chinese people, even in calm times, have a history of acting in concert. Last June, four female college students in Zhengzhou decided to take an overnight 50-km bike ride to Kaifeng for soup dumplings. The craze caught on, and in November tens of thousands were making the overnight treks. Authorities tried to limit the number of riders, and there were even reports that colleges and universities were restricting students from congregating and participating, but to little avail. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping's grip on the Communist Party may be weakening. Xi's hatchet man in the military, General He Weidong, has not been seen in public since early March, and may have been sacked. Other indications suggest that Xi is no longer in full control of the military, having lost influence to General Zhang Youxia, vice-chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission and China's number one uniformed officer. There are also signs that Xi is facing stiff opposition in the senior civilian ranks of the party. China's president must be thinking short-term these days. He has effectively junked the rules guiding succession, and by grabbing power from everyone else he has ended up with near-total responsibility for everything. Because he is being blamed for what has been going wrong for the last several years, Xi, as a practical matter, effectively faces an election every day. 'China's Communist elite presides over a decaying regime,' Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me last week. 'Xi Jinping's imposition of a neo-Stalinist programme of ever-tightening repression and reversion to full-state control of the national economy has led to economic stagnation, social malaise, and greater regime fragility.' For Xi Jinping, there is no long term.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Xi Jinping can't survive Trump's tariff pain
'Chinese society has an incredibly high capacity for pain,' Yasheng Huang of the MIT Sloan School of Management told the Wall Street Journal last month. And because China's people can supposedly 'eat bitterness', the phrase commonly used to describe the country's capacity to endure hardship, we are told that Chinese leaders have the luxury of looking past temporary adversity to think long term. Yes, both those notions were once true and both are accepted wisdom. But, no, they are no longer correct. In fact, China's society today is among the least resilient anywhere. Even before Donald Trump took the oath of office in January, the Chinese people were showing signs of disillusionment, despair, and anger. Now, with their economy probably contracting and their country caught up in a tense trade war, Chinese society is beginning to come under new stress. The regime certainly appears to be on edge, looking desperately to the past for ways to keep the population on side. On April 9, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning posted a Korean War-era video of Mao Zedong. 'No matter how long this war is going to last, we'll never yield,' Mao said in the clip from 1953. 'We will fight until we completely triumph.' Then on April 28, Beijing Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party's Beijing Municipal Committee, published an article titled 'Today, It Is Necessary to Revisit On Protracted War'. On Protracted War is a series of lectures Mao delivered in 1938 calling for the unity of the Chinese people in their struggle to defeat the invaders from Imperial Japan. China's regime has good reason to be worried about the mood of the Chinese people. The warning signs were plain to see. Due to the extraordinary Covid lockdowns and the subsequent failure of the economy to recover, people began withdrawing from society in large numbers. For many Chinese, it was the first time they had ever experienced a downturn. The last officially recognised recession had occurred in 1976. ''Lying flat,' 'Buddha whatever,' 'Kong Yijiism,' 'involution' – China today has so many memes for opting out,' wrote the University of Pennsylvania's Victor Mair in his July 2023 Language Log posting titled 'The Growing Supinity of Chinese Youth'. Since then, young Chinese have also been 'retiring' by leaving cities and taking up farming. Pessimism – even nihilism – accounts for the large number of Chinese people leaving their country for good and for the precipitous drop in birth rates. According to one estimate, China's total fertility rate last year was just 1.03, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. 'In this country, to love your child is to never let him be born in the first place,' read a comment posted on a Chinese site in 2023. Young Chinese, who refuse to have children, are calling themselves 'the last generation'. Many argue that the Communist Party's sophisticated social controls can keep the populace in line indefinitely, but the price of severe repression is volatility. The Chinese population, who most of the time have accepted repression, have periodically and unexpectedly exploded. Beginning in October 2022, for instance, large numbers of workers suddenly fled a Chinese manufacturing complex making iPhones in Zhengzhou, in central China. That incident was followed by spontaneous protests across the country. In November, chants of 'Step down, Xi Jinping' were heard on the streets of Shanghai. Eventually, the demonstrations died down, but the people of the People's Republic have a greater willingness to protest than is sometimes imagined. The Communist Party, as a result, feels insecure. That's especially true now as Trump's tariffs have hit Chinese workers hard. The US, after counting rerouted goods, takes almost 21 per cent of China's exports. Export-oriented factories are reported to be closing and worker protests are said to have become common across the country. The regime fears mass protests because the Chinese people, even in calm times, have a history of acting in concert. Last June, four female college students in Zhengzhou decided to take an overnight 50-km bike ride to Kaifeng for soup dumplings. The craze caught on, and in November tens of thousands were making the overnight treks. Authorities tried to limit the number of riders, and there were even reports that colleges and universities were restricting students from congregating and participating, but to little avail. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping's grip on the Communist Party may be weakening. Xi's hatchet man in the military, General He Weidong, has not been seen in public since early March, and may have been sacked. Other indications suggest that Xi is no longer in full control of the military, having lost influence to General Zhang Youxia, vice-chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission and China's number one uniformed officer. There are also signs that Xi is facing stiff opposition in the senior civilian ranks of the party. China's president must be thinking short-term these days. He has effectively junked the rules guiding succession, and by grabbing power from everyone else he has ended up with near-total responsibility for everything. Because he is being blamed for what has been going wrong for the last several years, Xi, as a practical matter, effectively faces an election every day. 'China's Communist elite presides over a decaying regime,' Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank told me last week. 'Xi Jinping's imposition of a neo-Stalinist programme of ever-tightening repression and reversion to full-state control of the national economy has led to economic stagnation, social malaise, and greater regime fragility.' For Xi Jinping, there is no long term. Gordon G Chang is the author of 'Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America' and 'The Coming Collapse of China'. Follow him on X @GordonGChang Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
