Insurance Firm China Life Puts $600M into Didi Chuxing Months after Backing Uber

Jon Russell
TechCrunch
It provides an equity investment of $300 million, and a separate “long-term debt investment” of RMB 2 billion ($305 million).

In China, Disney Aims to Keep Security Behind the Scenes

James T. Areddy
Wall Street Journal
With 330 million people only hours away, crowd control is paramount at new Shanghai Disneyland Resort.

U.S. Throws China Off High-Speed Rail Project

Te-ping Chen
Wall Street Journal
China state media says XpressWest’s move is irresponsible.

China’s Deal Makers Have German Tech Firms In Their Sights

William Wilkes
Wall Street Journal
Chinese investors are buying German companies at about one per week in 2016....

L’Oreal Is Setting A Dangerous Global Precedent By Bowing to China Over Free Speech

Vivienne Chow
Quartz
Lancome cancels concert to appeal to the mainland, sacrificing freedoms for their parnerships....

Are European Companies Falling Out of Love With China?

Holly Ellyatt
CNBC
Beijing has left 41 percent of European companies pessimistic and re-evaluating their China operations—including through headcount reduction....

Industrialization in Africa: Ethiopia Wants to Become the New ‘Made in China’

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
There’s a pretty good chance that some of the clothes you’re wearing, the shoes on your feet, and even the device you’re using to read this were made in China. Even as its economy slows, China remains the world’s factory, churning out billions of...

Caixin Media

06.06.16

Uncertain Future for China’s Market Status Bid

It’s been 15 years since China joined the World Trade Organization, and yet China is still waiting for the WTO to grant it market economy status. During this period, some Chinese businesses have expanded overseas while others have been accused of...

China’s Factory to the World Is in a Race to Survive

Bloomberg
President Xi wants Guangdong to set an example in his goal of moving away from the cheap-labor export model to an innovation-and-consumption-based one.

Bitcoin, Meet China. May You Have Many Happy Days Together.

Kevin Drum
Mother Jones
Most trading in bitcoin takes place in China: Huobi and OKCoin, two Chinese exchanges, are thought to account for more than 90% of transactions.

Record Showing for China on 'Power Women' List

BBC
The US dominated the list with 51 women represented, while China was second with nine women listed.

U.S. Chides China on Steel Glut, Treatment of Foreign Companies at Annual Talks

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
The U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing is overshadowed by growing trade friction and the dispute over the South China Sea.

China's Smartphone Billionaire Forges Alliance With Microsoft For Patent Portfolio

Robert Olsen
Forbes
Xiaomi is buying about 1,500 patents from Microsoft to support its international expansion.

United Flies Further Into China

Susan Carey
Wall Street Journal
Direct flights into second-tier cities from the U.S. is made possible because the U.S.-China air treaty doesn’t include as many limits on the number of flights to secondary cities.

Media

05.31.16

Will China’s ‘Taobao Villages’ Spur a Rural Revolution?

from chinadialogue
The province of Shanxi, in northern China, is famous for coal mining, and the industry’s impact is etched across the landscape. But the province’s southern counties, which lie near the Yellow River, are known for a very different commodity—red dates...

Depth of Field

05.31.16

Families, Weddings, and Beekeepers

Ye Ming, Yan Cong & more from Yuanjin Photo
This month’s Depth of Field column brings the stories of Chinese adoption; the marriage ceremony of Hu Mingliang and Sun Wenlin, a gay couple who filed the first civil rights marriage lawsuit to be accepted by a Chinese court (they lost); beekeepers...

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Chinese in Africa But Were Too Afraid to Ask

Eric Olander & Cobus van Staden
The Chinese presence in Africa has been so sudden and so all-encompassing that it’s left a lot of people confused. Chinese farmers now compete for space and customers in Lusaka’s open-air markets, Chinese textiles are undercutting Nigerian...

China's Richest Man Just Picked a Fight With Disneyland

Scott Cendrowski
Fortune
Wang Jianlin’s Wanda Group is also building amusement parks.

Conversation

05.24.16

How Much Debt Is Too Much in China?

Yukon Huang, Houze Song & more
In the first quarter of 2016, Chinese debt rose to 237 percent of GDP—a level comparable to that of the U.S. or the Eurozone and yet much larger than that of most developing economies, according to analysis by The Financial Times. Additionally,...

Abandoning TPP Free-Trade Deal Would Give China Free Pass: Chamber of Commerce

Matthew Belvedere
CNBC
If America backs out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, free trade allies in the region may turn to China.

China’s Midea Group Announces Bid for Germany’s Kuka

Kane Wu and Eyk Henning
Wall Street Journal
The offer is one of the largest unsolicited approaches of a foreign company by a Chinese buyer.

Caixin Media

05.17.16

Government Forces Big Pharma to Swallow a Bitter Pill

China’s latest round of healthcare market controls could be a bitter pill for multinational pharmaceutical companies that now, after years of what some call easy profits, are adapting to a tougher business climate.The National Health and Family...

Real-Estate Lawsuits Surge in China

Esther Fung
Wall Street Journal
Undelivered homes drive some buyers to sue while developers seek refunds on land.

Conversation

05.16.16

Escalation in the South China Sea

Julian G. Ku, M. Taylor Fravel & more
International tensions are rising over the shipping lanes and land formations in the South China Sea. Last week, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force scrambled fighter jets in response to a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the disputed Fiery Cross Reef...

Three Myths about China in Kenya

Apurva Sanghi and Dylan Johnson
Brookings Institution
Despite many problems, China’s involvement in Kenya is a net positive, as most trade relations in the world tend to be.

Tim Cook Visits China in Hopes Beijing Will Take Another Bite of the Apple

Eva Dou
Wall Street Journal
The visit comes as the company’s prospects in its second largest market appear to be souring.

Why Chinese Agriculture Engagement in Africa is Not What it Seems

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
The Western and African media have long fueled the myth that Chinese investors are buying up vast tracts of land across Africa as part of a neo-colonial plan to export food back to China. Sure, on one level, the theory appears plausible: China has...

Apple Raises Bet on China as It Faces Scrutiny From Beijing

Paul Mozur and Mike Isaac
New York Times
Apple invests $1 billion in a Chinese ride-hailing app to show the Chinese government it is interested in supporting local business.

Environment

05.13.16

Why China's Nuclear Exports May Struggle to Find a Market

from chinadialogue
China’s nuclear power industry has eyed up a big push to export its technologies as countries around the world consider low-carbon alternatives to coal.But despite an increasingly clearer field for Chinese nuclear exports—mainly because of the woes...

Apple's Uphill Battle with China Is a Reminder That There's No Such Thing As "Borderless" Tech

Mark Y. Rosenberg
Quartz
Tech companies will have to invest more resources in political risk control.

The $Mog Economy: Bottled Air Takes off as a Big Business in China

Joanna Chiu
Mashable
Moses Lam was an overworked mortgage broker when he started selling bags of air from Canada on eBay as a joke.

China, Taiwan Add Tourists to Their Squabbles

Ben Blanchard and Faith Hung
Reuters
"China is using its tourists as a bargaining chip against Taiwan's new government," said Lu Shiao-ya, chief of the National Joint Association of Tourist Buses.

Huya Bridges China's Novel Drugs With Overseas Markets

Jane Ho
Forbes
When Mireille Gillings, founder and chairman of Huya Bioscience International first visited China in 2004, she saw a niche that could grow.

The Latest U.S.-China Trade Spat Is over Chicken

Charles Riley
CNN
The Obama administration has accused China of unfairly blocking U.S. poultry imports, the latest in a series of election-year trade disputes between Washington and Beijing.

Facebook Wins China Trademark Case

Tom Mitchell
Financial Times
Such cases involve a Chinese company registering a high-profile Western name to benefit by forcing the company to either buy it back or take the matter to court.

Caixin Media

05.09.16

Yao Ming’s Biggest Game: Hoops Reform in China

Retired basketball superstar and Shanghai Sharks team owner Yao Ming is finding efforts to reform China’s professional sports environment a lot tougher than a slam dunk.The former Houston Rockets center, who hung up his high tops in 2011, is trying...

Conversation

05.05.16

How Should Global Stakeholders Respond to China’s New NGO Management Law?

Sebastian Heilmann , Thomas Kellogg & more
A new law gives broad powers to China’s police in regulating and surveilling the activities of foreign NGOs in China. The law would require foreign groups including foundations, charities, advocacy organizations, and academic exchange programs to...

Books

05.05.16

Alibaba

Duncan Clark
In just a decade and half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded and built Alibaba into one of the world’s largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and Presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China’s booming private sector and the gatekeeper to hundreds of millions of middle class consumers.Duncan Clark first met Jack in 1999 in the small apartment where Jack founded Alibaba. Granted unprecedented access to a wealth of new material, including exclusive interviews, Clark draws on his own experience as an early adviser to Alibaba and two decades in China chronicling the Internet’s impact on the country to create an authoritative, compelling narrative account of Alibaba’s rise.How did Jack overcome his humble origins and early failures to achieve massive success with Alibaba? How did he outsmart rival entrepreneurs from China and Silicon Valley? Can Alibaba maintain its 80 percent market share? As it forges ahead into finance and entertainment, are there limits to Alibaba’s ambitions? How does the Chinese government view its rise? Will Alibaba expand further overseas, including in the U.S.? Clark tells Alibaba’s tale in the context of China’s momentous economic and social changes, illuminating an unlikely corporate titan as never before. —HarperCollins{chop}

China Bondholders Lose Their Beijing-Bailout Confidence

Jasper Moiseiwitsch and Carol Chan
Wall Street Journal
Investors’ long-held assumption that the government would step up for state-run companies is shaken.

The New Qualification for China’s Tech Elite: Goldman Sachs

Wei Gu
Wall Street Journal
Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial set to hire banker Douglas Feagin, latest in a string of Goldman alumni at Chinese Internet firms.

China Investigates Baidu After Student’s Death From Cancer

Austin Ramzy
New York Times
Chinese regulators have begun an investigation into the Internet giant Baidu due to misleading medical advertising.

Apple No Longer Has Exclusive Rights to The "iPhone" Name in China

Zheping Huang
Quartz
Apple lost a trademark suit against a Chinese company, which now has right to make and sell leather products branded “IPHONE.”

China Wants to Own Small Stake in Web Firms

Li Yuan
Wall Street Journal
The Chinese government’s control over the Internet could get even tighter, with regulators floating a proposal for the state to take 1% stakes in major Chinese Internet.

China Sales Slide Eats Into Apple Revenue

Eva Dou
Wall Street Journal
Revenue from Greater China fell $4.3 billion, but iPhone sales in India picked up.

After Years of Big 3 Dominance, China Is About to Get a Fourth Telco

C. Custer
Tech in Asia
In an unexpected move, CBN is issued a telecom operator license, allowing it to compete with China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom.

Chinese Official Calls Trump 'Irrational' on Trade

David Shepardson
Reuters
Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei criticized Trump for his proposal that tariffs on imported Chinese goods be increased to up to 45%.

Caixin Media

04.18.16

Chinese Electric Vehicle Manufacturer BYD’s Image Hurt by Scandal Involving Dealer’s Suicide

China’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer, BYD Auto Co., is under intense scrutiny following the death of a Nanjing auto dealer who accused the company of bilking a government subsidy program and a Caixin probe suggesting the charge may have...

China’s Growing Appetite for African Real Estate

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
Amid a prolonged economic downturn and a weakening yuan, Chinese investors have turned their focus to buying overseas assets. While there are a number of complicated reasons behind the massive capital outflows over the past 18 months, the fact...

Conversation

04.12.16

Should Internet Censorship Be Considered a Trade Issue?

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Susan Shirk & more
A new report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative lists, for the first time, Chinese Internet censorship as a trade barrier. The possible implications are complex: it could strengthen the hand of U.S. businesses, but also stands...

Caixin Media

04.12.16

Chinese Telecoms Gear Maker ZTE Fighting U.S. Export Ban

The second-largest maker of telecoms gear in China is scrambling to get off a U.S. export blacklist that threatens to dry up supplies of critical components.“The investigations are still in progress, and may result in criminal and civil liabilities...

Rising in the East

Holly Williams
CBS News
China's film industry has grown so big so fast, that it is now looking to compete with Hollywood.

U.S. Adds China’s Internet Controls to List of Trade Barriers

Paul Mozur
New York Times
The limits have posed a significant burden to foreign suppliers, hurting both Internet sites and users who depend on them for business.”

China’s Homegrown Rival to Uber Valued at Over $25 Billion

Juro Osawa, Kane Wu and Rick Carew
Wall Street Journal
Beijing-based Didi Kuaidi Joint Co. is close to completing its latest funding round to raise more than $1.5 billion.

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.

China Says Business Spats with Myanmar Can Be Resolved

Ben Blanchard
Reuters
China is pushing Myanmar's new government to resume the controversial dam scheme through friendly talks.

China Tightens the Trade Screws on North Korea

Associated Press
China has banned most imports of North Korean coal and iron ore, the country's main exports.

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...

When It Comes to Luxury, China Still Leads

Christopher Horton
New York Times
A younger and more sophisticated generation of shoppers is emerging, who are educated, well-traveled and tech-savvy.

The Rise of Entrepreneurship in China

Edward Tse
Forbes
The entrepreneurial spirit runs deeper than just in business. It manifests itself in the government and in the desires of ordinary people.

Media

04.05.16

Chinese Censors Rush to Make ‘Panama Papers’ Disappear

David Wertime
On April 3, the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit International Committee of Investigative Journalists dropped what struck many as a bombshell: news that a leaked trove of 11.5 million previously secret files from Panama-based law firm Mossack...