Depth of Field

06.28.18

Staying on Point in Rural China

Ye Ming, Yan Cong & more from Yuanjin Photo
In this edition of Depth of Field: aspiring ballerinas, what’s beneath the gilt in a rich Zhejiang town, worn out doctors, disappearing schools, melting snow, data farms, and the powerful appeal of dancing outdoors.

Culture

03.23.18

What Chinese High School Students Learn in America

Jonathan Landreth
In 2011, when a rural prep school in Maine invited New York-based director Miao Wang to screen her first film, Beijing Taxi, she was surprised to find so many Chinese students enrolled at the archetypal New England establishment. Not Chinese-...

China Takeover Tycoons' Cash Wall

David Fickling
Bloomberg
These firms' engine isn't profit-making drudge-work selling goods but the art of persuading financiers.

China Propels Rise of Electric Ultra-High-Performance Cars

New York Times
Want an insanely fast ride with zero emissions? Startup NIO has the car: An electric two-seater with muscular European lines and a top speed of 195 miles per hour (313 kilometers per hour). The catch: The EP9 costs nearly $1.5 million. NIO, a...

Books

06.13.17

Fortune Makers

Michael Useem, Harbir Singh, Liang Neng, Peter Cappelli
Fortune Makers analyzes and brings to light the distinctive practices of business leaders who are the future of the Chinese economy. These leaders oversee not the old state-owned enterprises, but private companies that have had to invent their way forward out of the wreckage of an economy in tatters following the Cultural Revolution.Outside of brand names such as Alibaba and Lenovo, little is known, even by the Chinese themselves, about the people present at the creation of these innovative businesses. Fortune Makers provides sharp insights into their unique styles—a distinctive blend of the entrepreneur, the street fighter, and practices developed by the Communist Party—and their distinctive ways of leading and managing their organizations that are unlike anything the West is familiar with.When Peter Drucker published Concept of the Corporation in 1946, he revealed what made large American corporations tick. Similarly, when Japanese companies emerged as a global force in the 1980s, insightful analysts explained the practices that brought Japan’s economy out of the ashes—and what managers elsewhere could learn to compete with them. Now, based on unprecedented access, Fortune Makers allows business leaders in the United States and the rest of the West to understand the essential character and style of Chinese corporate life and its dominant players, whose businesses are the foundation of the domestic Chinese market and are now making their mark globally. —PublicAffairs{chop}

China’s Ill, and Wealthy, Look Abroad for Medical Treatment

Sui-Lee Wee
New York Times
Hospitals and a new generation of medical tourism companies are luring well-heeled Chinese patients away from an overburdened health care system.

Rich Chinese, Inspired by ‘Downton,’ Fuel Demand for Butlers

Chris Buckley and Karoline Kan
New York Times
Inspired in part by the Downton Abbey television drama, the country’s once raw and raucous tycoons are fueling demand for the services of homegrown butlers trained in the ways of a British manor.

Animosity in a Burmese Hub Deepens as Chinese Get Richer

Jane Perlez
New York Times
Locals view Chinese as taking advantage of Mandalay’s location and resources. Chinese view locals as beneath them, slow at business and making money.

What It’s Like Playing Golf in China

Scott Cendrowski
Fortune
As if the land of 1.4 billion people wasn’t already exerting influence on enough global markets, China is now a big part of golf’s future

China Steps up Panama Papers Censorship after Leaders' Relatives Named

Tom Phillips
Guardian
It's dangerous for higher leaders regarding internal party credibility as much as the broader public.

Conversation

04.06.16

China in the Panama Papers

Andrew J. Nathan, Bill Bishop & more
The overseas wealth of several relatives of senior Chinese leaders has come to light in an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) report, part of the analysis by a group of media outlets of more than 11 million documents leaked...

China Banks Face Credit Risks from Ties to Wealth Management Products

Leslie Shaffer
CNBC
While WMPs offer high interest rates, it isn't always clear what assets the funds are buying to finance those payouts.

China Banks Face Credit Risks from Ties to Wealth Management Products

Leslie Shaffer
CNBC
Chinese banks are creating a web of risk through their WMPs, raising concerns about the health of the financial system.

Top Tips from China's Richest Man, Wang Jianlin

Sophia Yan
CNN
His recent book claims to give an inside look into his managerial philosophy and the values that turned his company into a giant conglomerate.

How China Conquered France’s Wine Country

New Republic
French connoisseurs sold the Chinese pomp and prestige, until they started manufacturing it themselves.

With Help from 007's Daniel Craig, how Alibaba Turned 11-11 into China's Biggest Shopping Day

Julie Makinen
Los Angeles Times
Online shopping and entertainment fused into a consumerist juggernaut.

America’s Society Is Wealthier Than China’s – And It Doesn’t Matter

Christopher A. McNally and Denny Roy
Diplomat
The large gap in private wealth has limited significance.

China’s Film Industry Is Gaining on Hollywood

Bilge Ebiri
Businessweek
Chinese audiences are growing, more theaters are being built, and the movies are getting better.

China Box Office Booms with $284-Million Week; Foreign Films Remain Shut Out

Julie Makinen
Los Angeles Times
The depth and variety of local films suggests growth in China’s domestic production.

Chinese Investors Who Borrowed Are Hit Hard by Market Turn

DAVID BARBOZA
New York Times
Millions of ordinary investors like Mr. Gong, who piled into an ever-soaring Chinese stock market over the last year, are bracing for a roller-coaster ride.

China Stocks Fall in Defiance of Beijing’s Support Efforts

Patrick McGee, Josh Noble and Gabriel...
Financial Times
Another 173 firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen announced trading suspensions after the market closed on Tuesday, bringing the total to around 940. 

Chinese Stocks Drop 10% From Peak

Bloomberg
China’s benchmark stock index tumbled from this year’s peak amid growing concern that the country’s longest-ever bull market has propelled valuations to unsustainable levels.

Sinica Podcast

06.15.15

The People’s Republic of Cruiseland

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
We have enough favorite writers on China that we’ve had to develop a sophisticated classification system just to keep track of everyone. That said, one of our hardest to place within the long-form taxonomy is Chris Beam, who you may have heard on...

Investors Flee China Funds in Historic Rush

Alanna Petroff
CNN
Chinese funds just experienced the biggest exodus of money ever.

The $6.5 Trillion China Rally That’s Making Stock-Market History

Kyoungwha Kim
Bloomberg
 The sum is the value created in just 12 months of trading on Chinese stock exchanges, a rally some say has gone too far.

Culture

06.01.15

Chinese Writers and Chinese Reality

Ouyang Bin
My first encounter with Liu Zhenyun was in 2003. At the time, cell phones had just become available in China and they were complicating people’s relationships. I witnessed a couple break up because of the secrets stored on a phone. I watched people...

Chinese Investment Banker Fan Bao Searches for Next Jack Ma

William Mellor and Lulu Yilun Chen
Bloomberg
If successful, the combined Didi and Kuaidi Dache could join Internet giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent.

Buffett Bullish on China

Qian Ruisha
Global Times
Warren Buffett predicts a two-to-three-year boom in Mainland markets. 

China Cracks Down on Golf, the ‘Sport for Millionaires’

Austin Ramzy
New York Times
Party officials in Guangdong, home to the 12-course Mission Hills Golf Club, are now forbidden to golf during work hours.

Conversation

04.16.15

How Much Consumerism Can China Afford?

Andrew Batson & Matthew Crabbe
This week, a blockbuster movie celebrating speedy cars and the racing life landed atop China’s box office. The Hollywood import Fast and Furious 7 grossed $63 million in one day (as reported by Bloomberg), the most-ever for a single title in that...

BMW China Dealers Press Auto Maker for More Financial Support

Rose Yu and Colum Murphy
Wall Street Journal
In letter to German luxury car maker, dealers call on BMW to set more realistic sales targets.

The Chinese Billionaire Zhang Lei Spins Research Into Investment Gold

Alexandra Stevenson
New York Times
Starting 10 years ago with $20 million from Yale’s endowment, Zhang was an early backer of Tencent and JD.com.

Henan Delegates Protest Inequality in University Admissions

Chris Buckley
New York Times
Henan people say big cities are given preferential consideration for education funds and places in universities.

Spooked by Yuan Drop: China’s Top 1%

Andrew Browne
Wall Street Journal
Fears the megarich will take flight puts a floor under the currency’s slide against dollar.

Soft Recruits Hinder China’s Military Modernization

Jane Perlez
New York Times
Many of China's army conscripts have been raised as spoiled children of the one-child policy and need toughening up, a RAND report says. 

Infographics

02.03.15

Wealthy Chinese Are Fleeing the Country Like Mad

from Sohu
Last year, Chinese millionaires maxed out the quota for EB-5 visas under the U.S.’s Immigrant Investor Program, and recently it was reported that 90% of Australia’s Significant Investor visas were given to Chinese nationals. All over the world,...

China Wants Taxes Paid by Citizens Living Afar

Keith Bradsher
New York Times
As Chinese individuals and companies head overseas in greater numbers, the country’s tax authorities are starting to follow.

Environment

01.07.15

A Post-Mortem on Jack Ma’s Hunting Trip

from chinadialogue
In 2014, just before the U.S. IPO of his company Alibaba, Jack Ma became caught up in a debate sparked by a hunting trip he took to the U.K.. My colleagues and I at chinadialogue had an idea: rise above that debate and look at the facts.The U.K...

China’s Rich Want to Send Children Abroad for Education

Xinhua
China Daily
The report said that some 80 percent of the country's rich people have plans to send children abroad, the highest ratio in the world. By contrast, Japan has less than 1 percent and Germany has less than 10 percent of its rich people having such...

Alibaba Founder Jack Ma Tops China Rich List

BBC
E-commerce mogul Jack Ma has become China's richest person following Alibaba's record share listing, according to a wealth survey by the Hurun Report. Ma tops its annual rich list with a fortune of $25 billion. 

Reading Howl in China

Guo XIaolu
Aeon Magazine
My generation, once impassioned by the Western literature of rebellion, is now lulled by ‘Wealthy Socialism.’

China's Rich Look Abroad as Home Prices Fall, Others Stay Put

Xiaoyi Shao and Koh Gui Qing
Reuters
"Smart money" checking the exit is a bad omen for any market, especially one considered frothy after a five-year record-breaking bull run, but analysts say there is no reason for alarm yet.

Note to Cadres: Hands Off the Black Audi and Chauffeur

CHRIS BUCKLEY
New York Times
Can you take away that ultimate perk of the respectable cadre—the black car with intimidatingly tinted windows, an equally intimidating medley of official insignia, passes and a faithful driver? We’re about to find out.

Two Studies of Modern China: ‘Age of Ambition’ & ‘The New Emperors’

Isabel Hilton
Guardian
Evan Osnos examines a changing China through gentle reportage, while Kerry Brown provides illuminating forensic analysis of its vicious power struggles

China Now Has More Millionaires Than Any Country but the U.S.

Jason Chow
Wall Street Journal
China had 2,378,000 millionaire households in 2013, a rise of 82% from the previous year and almost double the 1,240,000 millionaire households in Japan, according to the Boston Consulting Group Global Wealth 2014 report unveiled on Tuesday.

Mapping the Four C's of Chinese Wealth

Warner Brown
Live in a city near China's coast, and in a capital. (Coal doesn't hurt.)

Young Party Members ‘Top Earners’

Li Jing
South China Morning Post
 Survey of China's 'post-80s' generation finds high pay tied to official status inside the Chinese Communist Party.

China’s Income Inequality Surpasses U.S., Posing Risk for President Xi Jinping,

Lorraine Woellert and Sharon Chen
Bloomberg
The income gap between the rich and poor in China has surpassed that of the U.S. and is among the widest in the world, a report showed, adding to the challenges for President Xi Jinping as growth slows.

China’s Aggressive Museum Growth Brings Architectural Wonders

Sam Gaskin
CNN
By the end of 2013, two years before deadline, China already exceeded its goal, tallying a total of 4,000 museums.

Media

04.28.14

A Guide to Social Class in Modern China

Class is a sensitive word in China. Marxist-Leninist rhetoric like “class enemies,” “class conflict,” and “class struggle” are rarely seen in the country’s media these days, but since China began its market reforms in 1979, stratification has...

Bill Gates Urges China’s Wealthiest to Give to Charity...Again

Jonathan Kaiman
Guardian
Businessman makes plea in People's Daily for country to improve bad philanthropic record by investing in the poor.

The Chinese Take Manhattan: Replace Russians as Top Apartment Buyers

Michelle Conlin and Maggie Lu Yueyang
Reuters
Many Chinese buyers are switching their interest away from markets like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore amid fears that prices have soared to frothy levels in those cities.

In China, A Big Jet Becomes a Status Symbol

Joe Sharkey
New York Times
Chinese buyers are enthusiastically opting mostly for so-called heavy metal jets—big, long-range luxury jets that can cost $50 million or more before extras like fancy cabin fixtures.

Caixin Media

09.23.13

Measuring the Wealth Gap

Recent findings by China Society of Economic Reform (CSER) have offered a rare glimpse into growing income inequality in the country.The study shows that in 2011 unidentified “gray income,” or the difference between CSER-surveyed income and that of...

China’s Millionaire Population Grows Less Quickly

Laurie Burkitt
Wall Street Journal
With the world’s second-largest economy in the midst of an extended slowdown, growth in the population of Chinese millionaires has fallen to its slowest pace in five years.

Media

07.29.13

On “Wealth and Power”

Authors Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society, and John Delury, Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at Yonsei University in South Korea, joined Jonathan Spence, Professor of History at Yale...

China’s Richer-Than-Romney Lawmakers Reveal Reform Challenge

Michael Forsythe, Michael Wei and Henry...
Bloomberg
 The growing presence of wealthy people in the legislature coincides with Xi's efforts to address the concern that the Communist Party no longer represents the interests of ordinary Chinese. 

Rage, Smelly Socks and Stolen Wine in China’s Skies

Adam Minter
Bloomberg
A look at the recent high volume of unruly behavior from flight passengers, and how it reflects on the “national character" of the Chinese people.

In China, A Vast Chasm Between the Rich and the Rest

Sim Chi Yin
New York Times
The passing coal miners in remote Shaanxi Province took one look at our marooned Audi and walked on, leaving us stuck on the sleet-covered mountain road. As dusk fell, I managed to mingle with some young migrant workers, and trek with them through a...