Jason Hsu on China, competitiveness and ESG

To outcompete globally, to generate profits - this animal spirit of responding to monetary incentives is stronger in China than any other country I ever visited. Whereas, if you look at the U.S. and Europe and Japan today: ESG investing, purpose investing, impact investing, where investors are saying, "Hey, I'm willing to make less money, lower return for other reasons," right? "My investing, my work isn't merely profit-driven." And that ethos almost points to anti-capitalism. Capitalism requires you to be entirely selfish and profit-motivated. So that's the dichotomy in China. On the one hand you have extreme profit-motivated behaviors that's led to phenomenal growth. That's led to everyone acquiring a tremendous amount of education and working tremendously hard and producing prosperity and growth, but with a backdrop of a society that's also very distrustful of a market mechanism. 

~ Jason Hsu, "Quantamental Investing Lessons with Jason Hsu," 27:30 mark, Stansberry Investor Hour, March 18, 2021