Charles Freeman
424 posts

Charles Freeman
@AsiaPac_Freeman
SVP for Asia at the US Chamber. Old China Hand. Opinions are my own. retweets are not endorsements.

Switching it up 🔀 @JacoryMerritt15 | #RaiseHail


Zhengzhou makes your iPhone. Now the central Chinese city is churning out cheap lab-grown diamonds for your engagement ring. The prices for synthetic diamonds have plummeted, falling by nearly 90% over the past five years. It is cheaper than ever to buy sparkling stones that are chemically identical to their natural cousins. Once a fringe choice, lab-grown diamonds now account for over half of engagement rings sold in the US. The majority of these rings begin their life in a factory in Henan, where a handful of factories are undercutting their rivals with more affordable technology and lower energy costs. Consumers don't realise the central role China plays in this growing trade, because the diamond "origin" is linked to where the stone is polished rather than where it is mined. Around 70% of lab-grown diamonds for jewellery originate from China. The stones have become so inexpensive that I saw uncut gems lying around unguarded during my reporting trip to Henan. The current market rate for an unpolished one-carat stone is just $15. As synthetic stones flood the market, the future of natural diamonds - once marketed as eternal - now looks anything but certain. This was a fun one to report with the sparkling @lesliehook on.ft.com/3TUUAYy


@BurgundyBlog Time for those of you in the media to find a way to shorten it. Dubs?



A Marshmallow World - Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra on The Dean Martin Show - 21st December 1967.

Fact check: Literally none of our solar panels are coming from China.





A group of House Republicans are introducing a bill to rename D.C.'s Dulles airport to the "Donald J. Trump International Airport." trib.al/5lCOean










