around the world and keeping the internet free and fair. the big boss of web browser, firefox, tells me how herfoundation is trying to compete with the deep pocketed rivals like google and apple and still have an influence. wherever you rejoining me from around the world. once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. china it s the world s second biggest economy. it trails only the united states and is more than four times the size of the next on the list, japan. so what happens there certainly matters. but a year since the government abandoned coronavirus lockdowns, it s an economy that s still struggling. the challenges for president xi jinping s government include vast debts in the property market and local government, soaring youth unemployment, an ageing workforce and ongoing trade tensions with the united states. his government set a target of around 5% for economic growth this year. it was the lowest in decades, and some say that was deliberate, but it will
being the world s factory floor and other industries coming into play? the leadership in china has this idea that manufacturing, making real stuff, technical stuff, is really important and china wants to be a bigger and i quote unquote, smarter germany in the sense using ai data communications to do high value added manufacturing. so that is very much still the goal, but is to climb up the value chain. a lot of the low end manufacturing has already moved to neighbouring countries, southeast asia and so forth. but that in the leadership mind is most important. hence the crackdowns on the real estate and even the financial system because it doesn t see it as as the real economy. let me end on this, because i m just wondering, does beijing president xijinping, do they even care about the huge role that china plays on the global economy, especially if that conflicts with the domestic agenda? do they care about the role