Viewpoint

07.10.21

Why China Is Going After Its Tech Giants

Charles Mok
Just days after its lucrative listing on the New York Stock Exchange, China ride-hailing giant Didi Global was hit with another round of sanctions by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). On July 4, the country’s Internet regulator ordered...
03.30.21

Shielding Corporate Interests, Europe Leaves NGOs Working in China by the Wayside

Bertram Lang
In late December 2020, at the end of a very turbulent year in Europe-China relations, and after more than seven years of often strenuous negotiations, the European Union (EU) and China agreed on the terms of a “Comprehensive Agreement on Investment...

Conversation

03.11.21

Hong Kong’s Economic Future

Ho-fung Hung, Flora Huang & more
If conventional wisdom held that China would never risk Hong Kong’s market, that was predicated on a specter of a foreign financial exodus. When the national security law was promulgated, experts warned of an international withdrawal and an end to...

Conversation

06.16.20

China’s Zoom Bomb

Wang Dan, Donald Clarke & more
In the lead-up to the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations this spring, Zoom, the U.S.-based company whose online meeting platform has rocketed to global prominence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, received requests from China’s...

Books

03.24.20

Vernacular Industrialism in China

Eugenia Lean
Columbia University Press: In early 20th-century China, Chen Diexian (1879-1940) was a maverick entrepreneur—at once a prolific man of letters, captain of industry, magazine editor, and cosmetics magnate. He tinkered with chemistry in his private studio, used local cuttlefish to source magnesium carbonate, and published manufacturing tips in how-to columns. In a rapidly changing society, Chen copied foreign technologies and translated manufacturing processes from abroad to produce adaptations of global commodities that bested foreign brands. Engaging in the worlds of journalism, industry, and commerce, he drew on literati practices associated with late-imperial elites but deployed them in novel ways within a culture of educated tinkering that generated industrial innovation.Through the lens of Chen’s career, Eugenia Lean explores how unlikely individuals devised unconventional, homegrown approaches to industry and science in early 20th-century China. She contends that Chen’s activities exemplify “vernacular industrialism,” the pursuit of industry and science outside of conventional venues, often involving ad hoc forms of knowledge and material work. Lean shows how vernacular industrialists accessed worldwide circuits of law and science and experimented with local and global processes of manufacturing to navigate, innovate, and compete in global capitalism. In doing so, they presaged the approach that has helped fuel China’s economic ascent in the 21st century. Rather than conventional narratives that depict China as belatedly borrowing from Western technology, Vernacular Industrialism in China offers a new understanding of industrialization, going beyond material factors to show the central role of culture and knowledge production in technological and industrial change.{chop}

Viewpoint

03.18.20

‘This Is Not Forensic Genetics Anymore. This Is Surveillance.’

Jessica Batke
Yves Moreau, a professor specializing in human clinical genomics, had been emailing with Promega since 2016, warning its communications department first about how Promega’s products might be used in a proposed DNA databasing project in Kuwait, and...

Features

02.19.20

American Company Sold DNA Analysis Equipment to Security Officials in Xinjiang, Documents Show

Jessica Batke & Mareike Ohlberg
In 2015, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau announced it planned to purchase equipment from the U.S.-based biotechnology company Promega for the purpose of analyzing DNA and adding it to a national database,...

Books

01.07.20

China’s Urban Champions

Kyle A. Jaros
Princeton University Press: The rise of major metropolises across China since the 1990s has been a double-edged sword: Although big cities function as economic powerhouses, concentrated urban growth can worsen regional inequalities, governance challenges, and social tensions. Wary of these dangers, China’s national leaders have tried to forestall top-heavy urbanization. However, urban and regional development policies at the sub-national level have not always followed suit. China’s Urban Champions explores the development paths of different provinces and asks why policymakers in many cases favor big cities in a way that reinforces spatial inequalities rather than reducing them.Kyle Jaros combines in-depth case studies of Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu provinces with quantitative analysis to shed light on the political drivers of uneven development. Drawing on numerous Chinese-language written sources, including government documents and media reports, as well as a wealth of field interviews with officials, policy experts, urban planners, academics, and businesspeople, Jaros shows how provincial development strategies are shaped by both the horizontal relations of competition among different provinces and the vertical relations among different tiers of government. Metropolitan-oriented development strategies advance when lagging economic performance leads provincial leaders to fixate on boosting regional competitiveness, and when provincial governments have the political strength to impose their policy priorities over the objections of other actors.Rethinking the politics of spatial policy in an era of booming growth, China’s Urban Champions highlights the key role of provincial units in determining the nation’s metropolitan and regional development trajectory.{chop}

Books

12.18.19

Tech Titans of China

Rebecca A. Fannin
Nicholas Brealey Publishing: The rise of China’s tech companies and intense competition from the sector is just beginning. This will present an ongoing management and strategy challenge for companies for many years to come. Tech Titans of China is the go-to guide for companies (and those interested in competition from China) seeking to understand China’s grand tech ambitions, who the players are, and what their strategy is.Featuring detailed profiles of the Chinese tech companies making waves, the tech sectors that matter most in China’s grab for super power status, and predictions for China’s tech dominance in just 10 years.{chop} Related Reading:“The Inside Story of China’s Stunning Rise from Tech Imitator to Innovator,” Marcus Baram, Fast Company, September 5, 2019

Conversation

10.10.19

What Just Happened with the NBA in China?

Brook Larmer, Jonathan Sullivan & more
Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted—and then quickly deleted—a post supporting the protests in Hong Kong. The tweet generated an immediate outcry. The Chinese Basketball Association announced it was suspending cooperation with the...

Features

09.21.19

Which European Companies Are Working in Xinjiang?

Benjamin Haas
Foreign companies continue to conduct business in Xinjiang despite widespread evidence of human rights abuse. This list identifies 68 European companies with ties to Xinjiang ranging from building infrastructure and investing in joint ventures to...

How Chinese Traders Both Help and Hurt Local Merchants in Ghana

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
It is well documented that a lot of people in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa resent the growing Chinese migrant presence, in terms of both the people who come into their countries and the Chinese way of doing business that is often culturally out of...

Is the Belt and Road Initiative a Bold Economic Agenda or a Political Ploy?

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
In an ongoing series that explores different interpretations of what exactly is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Eric and Cobus are joined by Zhu Zheng, an international affairs columnist for Caixin and a research fellow at the China-Eastern...

Viewpoint

04.23.19

Who Owns Huawei?

Christopher Balding & Donald Clarke
Who owns Huawei? American officials have long claimed the controversial telecommunications giant belongs to the Chinese state, while Huawei has long called itself a “private company wholly owned by its employees.” Huawei states that its founder, Ren...

Viewpoint

12.21.18

A Look Back at China in 2018

Kyle Hutzler
In 2018, the outlook for China regarding its politics, economy, and relationship with the United States darkened considerably. The removal of presidential term limits and Xi Jinping’s interactions with the Trump administration prompted rare...

Features

10.02.18

Here Are the Fortune 500 Companies Doing Business in Xinjiang

News reports from the western Chinese region of Xinjiang have described alarming, widespread, and worsening violations of the human rights of its predominantly Muslim, ethnically Turkic inhabitants, primarily the region’s approximately 11 million...

Conversation

05.11.18

Do American Companies Need to Take a Stance on Taiwan?

J. Michael Cole, Frances Kitt & more
China’s airline regulator recently sent a letter to 36 international air carriers requiring them to remove from their websites references implying that Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau are not part of China. In a surprisingly direct May 5 statement, the...

U.S. Considers Tightening Grip on China Ties to Corporate America

Koh Gui Qing
Reuters
Any broad effort to sever relationships between Chinese and American tech companies - even temporarily - could have dramatic effects across the industry.

China Now Has the Most Valuable AI Startup in the World

Bloomberg News
Bloomberg
Facial recognition company in China becomes richest-valued private AI startup.

The Brands That Kowtow to China

Richard Bernstein from New York Review of Books
There’s been no joking as the apologies to China have come thick and fast in recent weeks, issued not by teenage singers but by some of the largest and richest multinational corporations in the world—the German luxury car manufacturer Daimler, the...

Chinese Capital Controls Hit Silicon Valley Tech Investors

Leslie Hook
Financial Times
Chinese technology investors in Silicon Valley are being thwarted by the country’s capital controls, in a sign of the unintended consequences of Beijing’s move last year to curb cash outflows.

Will Tech Firms Challenge China’s ‘Open’ Internet?

Robin Brant
BBC
China has been smart and ruthless in its control of the internet within its borders. It blocks some foreign sites altogether and it censors - heavily - what Chinese are allowed to see.

China's Soccer Push Puts a Storied Team under Murky Ownership

SuiI-Lee Wee & Ryan McMorrow &...
New York Times
When the Chinese businessman Li Yonghong bought A.C. Milan, the world-famous Italian soccer club, virtually nobody in Italy had heard of him.

Chinese Investors Are Stealthily Pouring Money into India

CNBC
If you go by official Indian government figures, Chinese direct investments into the country this century hit a paltry $1.6 billion in March 2017.

Accelerating Fintech in China

Joshua Bateman
TechCrunch
China’s expeditious adoption of fintech is generating profits not only for startups, but also the companies investing in them. Sitting in the headquarters of FinPlus, a fintech venture capital firm and accelerator, its CEO, Mosso Lau, said, “There...

China Leads the March of Women Learning Business

Emily Feng
Financial Times
In her early 20s Cindy Mi preferred long pencil skirts and severe blazers. She was managing her family education business and she projected authority by dressing conservatively.

Blocked in China, Facebook Is Said to Seek a Shanghai Office

Paul Mozur
New York Times
The social media giant in recent months has quietly scouted for office space in Shanghai, according to two people with knowledge of its efforts there. Those offices would house employees working on Facebook’s effort to make hardware but could also...

China’s Former Richest Man Now Banned from Hong Kong’s Business World

Sophia Yan
CNBC
Chinese entrepreneur Li Hejun, who briefly held the title of China’s richest man, was just banned from Hong Kong’s business world.A Hong Kong court ruled to disqualify Li from being a director or being involved with the management of any Hong Kong...

China's HNA Group Sues Exiled Chinese Businessman

Julie Steinberg and Carolyn Cui
Wall Street Journal
One of China’s most acquisitive companies is suing an exiled Chinese businessman for allegedly spreading what it says are falsehoods that have hurt the conglomerate’s reputation and financial interests.

China Realizes It Needs Foreign Companies

Christopher Balding
Bloomberg
China is increasingly desperate for foreign investment. Yet foreign companies are less and less interested in what it has to offer. How this problem gets resolved may be one of the most important questions facing China's economy.

China Is Investing $57 Billion into Pakistan

Fortune
Chinese entrepreneurs are looking to explore opportunities in Pakistan, where Beijing has pledged to spend $57 billion on infrastructure projects as part of its “Belt and Road” initiative.

Germany Is Trying to Stop China from Gobbling up Its Companies — but There May Be a Downside

Karen Gilchrist
CNBC
Think of Germany and it isn’t long before visions of bustling business districts and thriving manufacturing plants spring to mind. It isn’t surprising: it’s these industries that have elevated the country to rank among the world’s leading economies...

New Balance Wins $1.5 Million in Landmark China Trademark Case

Sui-Lee Wee
New York Times
A Chinese court has ruled that three domestic shoemakers must pay New Balance $1.5 million in damages and legal costs for infringing the American sportswear company’s signature slanting ”N” logo, in what lawyers said was the largest trademark...

Conversation

08.03.17

As China Reins in Capital, What Next for Global Trade?

Yu Zhou & Peter Knaack
China’s Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, are tightening controls on overseas spending by the country’s biggest companies and their highly visible billionaire CEOs. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Xi personally signed off on...

A Crackdown on Unfettered Internet Access Is Jeopardizing China’s Pro-Business Credentials

Charlie Campbell
Time
Another big political meeting, another crackdown on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)—the location-shifting software many in China use to access websites banned by its government, such as Facebook, YouTube and Google.

China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Opens up New Business in Africa—for Both the U.S. And China

Washington Post
There has been no shortage of headlines proclaiming China’s growing clout in a “new world order” in recent months. This speculation resurfaced after the July G-20 summit, at which the United States reconfirmed its withdrawal from the Paris climate...

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}

World Asia China Cranks Up Heat on Exiled Tycoon Guo Wengui

Wall Street Journal
Beijing airs allegations involving whistleblowing businessman living in New York as subordinates are tried for fraud in unusually open proceedings.

Reports

05.24.17

China’s Social Credit System: A Big-Data Enabled Approach to Market Regulation with Broad Implications for Doing Business in China

Mirjam Meissner
Mirjam Meissner
Mercator Institute for China Studies
Under the catchphrase “Social Credit System,” China is currently implementing a new and highly innovative approach to monitoring, rating, and regulating the behavior of market participants. The Social Credit System will have significant impact on...

Viewpoint

05.09.17

Beijing Is Weakening Hong Kong’s Rule of Law. How Far Will It Go?

Alvin Y.H. Cheung
“The American Chamber of Commerce has urged Hong Kong’s next government to reach out to international businesses still ‘unclear’ about what opportunities the city can offer under the one country, two systems policy.” —South China Morning Post, April...

Viewpoint

04.03.17

What Does the Future Hold for Business between the U.S. and China under Trump?

Ker Gibbs
We are now well into the first 100 days of the Trump administration. His supporters expect major changes in the China relationship. They voted for a man who promised to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods and slap China with the currency...

Trump Trademarks Approved by China

BBC
China has given U.S. President Donald Trump the chance to expand his brand, after approving dozens of applications to register the Trump trademark.

China’s Plan to Build Its Own High-Tech Industries Worries Western Businesses

Keith Bradsher and Paul Mozur
New York Times
China has charted out a $300 billion plan to become nearly self-sufficient by 2025 in a range of important industries, from planes to computer chips to electric cars, as it looks to kick-start its next stage of economic development. 

Inflation in China Is Heating Up Fast

David Scutt
Business Insider
Chinese inflationary pressures went up a cog in January, led by another enormous surge in producer price inflation (PPI). 

Why Foreign Companies Are Shutting Shop in China

Jane Li
South China Morning Post
Sony Electronics, Marks & Spencer, Metro, Home Depot, Best Buy, Revlon, L’Oreal, Microsoft, and Sharp—some of the big names to have closed Chinese operations

Billionaire Is Reported Seized from Hong Kong Hotel and Taken into China

Michael Forsythe
New York Times
A Chinese-born billionaire who has forged financial ties with some of the country’s most powerful families was taken by the Chinese police from his apartment at the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong late last week and spirited across the border

Bike-Sharing Revolution Aims to Put China Back on Two Wheels

Top Phillips
Guardian
From Shanghai to Sichuan, schemes are being rolled out to slash congestion, cut air pollution – and spin a profit

Mooted $75 Million Oscar Trade Sets Up Record China Soccer Spend

Tariq Panja
Bloomberg
Chinese teams set to continue soccer spending spree in window; Spending comes amid warning from Communist Party newspaper

WWE’s China Hopes Rest on Bin Wang’s Big Shoulders

Jessica Toonkel
Reuters
Wang will be joined by seven other Chinese athletes hand-picked by WWE Inc, in the hope that one of them will become the first Chinese WWE "superstar"

China Takes Aim at South Korea’s Lotte After Missile Move

Bryan Harris and Charles Clover
Financial Times
Series of probes follows Lotte’s surrender of golf course to host US-made Thaad missile shield

China Exports Snap Seven-Month Losing Streak as Imports Surge

Bloomberg
China’s exports gained as a cheaper yuan aided foreign purchasing; Imports jumped the most in more than two years on strong demand for raw materials

How a Midwest Governor Rose to Become America’s Top Official in China

Catherine Wong
South China Morning Post
Trump administration hopes Terry Branstad’s long-standing friendship with Xi Jinping will smooth often-strained ties between the two nations

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 Does a Fried Chicken Restaurant Have to do With Prostitution? China Wants to Know

Echo Huang
Quartz
One business in China is learning that a play on words can get it in trouble with the government

$100 Billion Chinese-Made City Near Singapore ’Scares the Hell Out of Everybody’

Pooja Thakur Mahrotri and En Han Choong
Bloomberg
Planeloads of buyers fly in as condos rise from the sea

Rwanda is a Landlocked Country with Few Natural Resources. So Why is China Investing So Heavily in it?

Lily Kuo
Quartz
Rwanda doesn't fit the usual narrative of China's interest in Africa-- namely that China is only interested in the continent's resources

Will Trump’s Love of Deals Work With China?

Andrew Browne
Wall Street Journal
A president known for deal-making could change the landscape in East Asia

A Chinese Aid Project for Rwandan Farmers is More of a Gateway for Chinese Businesses

Lily Kuo
Quartz
The Chinese approach to development cooperation does not separate aid, diplomacy, and commerce

As the Election Haze Clears, Trump’s China Conundrum Will Become Clear

Jonathan Fenby
Guardian
President Trump would be well advised to steer away from the rhetoric of Candidate Trump in dealing with the world’s second biggest economy

What Will a Trump Presidency Mean for China?

Rob Schmitz
NPR
The response of China's state-controlled media to Donald Trump's victory seemed almost gleeful. What's happens next?