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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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It wasn't horribly boring, just repetitive. Whatever the LLM wrote seemingly wasn't edited thoroughly enough, so the post kept re-stating the same few points over and over again.

1:

If you process those goods there, adding just 30% value under the Free Trade Port's eligibility and supervision rules, you can sell them into mainland China with zero tariffs

2:

Under the new Hainan rules, the flow looks like this:

  • Import raw materials or components into Hainan (Tariff: 0%).
  • Do "processing" in Hainan that increases the value by 30%.
  • Ship the finished product to Shanghai (Tariff: 0%)."

3:

The 'core purpose of the Hainan FTP is what we might call the 30% Loophole

4:

The '30% value add' rule effectively turns Hainan into a giant mixing vat. You pour in global commodities, stir them with Chinese labor (which is still cost-competitive for high-skill work), and pour out a 'Hainan' product

Etc. And this is just one example.