Lies, Damned Lies, And Chinese Statistics

Tom Orlik
Foreign Policy
Although the information provided by the National Bureau of Statistics is not completely transparent, it has taken steps to free national data from the influence of local exaggeration.

China Seen Cutting Subsidy For Largest Solar Projects

Bloomberg
Vice Chariman of the China Renewable Energy Society says a new policy may abolish one-time subsidies, while at the same time, a separate subsidy based on power production would be extended to low-voltage plants that don’t typically supply utilities...

Caixin Media

03.17.13

Ladders, Losers, and Direct-Marketing Schemes

A skin cream customer pays an extra fee and, voilà, instantly becomes a company representative with the right to sell cream and other products, as well as recruit more dealers.Eventually, she persuades other women to buy the cream and join the...

What China’s New President Means For The Entertainment Industry

Clarence Tsui
Hollywood Reporter
Although China's annual foreign movie quota was recently increased, there’s much uncertainty surrounding how Xi’s rise to power will impact the entertainment industry. 

Backed By Profit-Hungry Investors, New Approach To Farming Takes Root

Ma Yuan, Zheng Fei, Liu Ran, and Rong...
Investors in the country betting big on the organic concept have poured money into food producers and distributors, especially as food scandals make citizens more and more wary of familiar produce. 

China Plenty Creative, Just Not in Right Ways

Debra Bruno
WSJ: China Real Time Report
The best innovation in the post-industrial world comes from “the sharing of knowledge and information across a variety of fields,” something economist Arthur Kroeber says China’s restriction on free information actively stanches. 

China Hacker’s Angst Opens A Window Onto Cyber-Espionage

Tommy Yang
Los Angeles Times
A P.L.A. hacker’s blog is discovered, providing a rare peek into the secretive hacking establishment of the Chinese military, in what is believed to be by far the world’s largest institutionalized hacking operation. 

Caixin Media

03.10.13

Finding IPO Alley

China’s IPO action has been locked in ice since October by China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) officials intent on boosting investor confidence and improving scrutiny of stock market hopefuls.Yet the heat is on for aspiring executives at...

China’s Richest Man Says Capital Markets ‘Suck’

Lilian Lin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
 Zong Qinhou's sentiment speaks volumes, highlighting the monumental obstacles investors face in China as they look for places to park their money in hopes of a return. 

Conversation

03.08.13

Will China’s Property Market Crash, and So What If It Does?

Dorinda Elliott & Bill Bishop
Dorinda Elliott:At this week’s National People’s Congress, outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao proclaimed that the government kept housing prices from rising too fast. Really? I wonder what my 28-year-old Shanghainese friend Robert thinks about that. He and...

Zhang Xin: China’s Real Estate Mogul

Shachar Bar-On
CBS News
Cultural Revolution child Zhang Xin talks with Leslie Stahl about her transformation from sweatshop worker to self-made billionaire.

Caixin Media

03.04.13

China’s Frills and Posh Market Springs a Leak

Imagine a luxury goods shopper so confident and flush with cash that one day he walks into a Shanghai handbag shop, flashes 300,000 yuan, and waltzes out with almost every bag in stock.That’s what happened last year at a Prada store where Benny Lu...

Conversation

03.01.13

Is America’s Door Really Open to China’s Investment?

Daniel H. Rosen, Orville Schell & more
Daniel Rosen:There have not been many new topics in U.S.-China economic relations over the past decade: the trade balance, offshoring of jobs, Chinese holding of U.S. government debt, whether China’s currency is undervalued and intellectual property...

Apple Supplier Faces Sanctions in China

Sarah Mishkin, Patti Waldmeir, Kathrin...
Financial Times
A manufacturer that produces Apple iPad casings faces sanctions from the Shanghai government after discharging waste that turned a local river milky white, killing fish and leaving water unfit for crop cultivation.

Caixin Media

02.24.13

Dirty Business for China’s Internet Scrubbers

Flames of a public relations disaster were licking at the heels of a private equity firm when China’s most notorious Internet-scrubbing company rode to the rescue.Saving the Shenzhen-based firm’s image was not cheap, and it took more than two months...

Conversation

02.22.13

Will Investment in China Grow or Shrink?

Donald Clarke & David Schlesinger
Donald Clarke:I don’t have the answer as to whether investment in China will grow or shrink, but I do have a few suggestions for how to think about the question. First, we have to clarify why we want to know the answer to this question: what do we...

Chinese Hackers Are Getting Dangerously Good At English

Melissa Chan
Foreign Policy
 Chinese hackers are getting dangerously good at tricking users into clicking on what are known as “phishing emails” -- messages with links or attachments that seem innocuous, but actually dump spyware on recipients'...

Hollywood And China: Revenue And Responsibility

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
Until recently, Hollywood looked upon China with a mix of dread and desperation, but Hollywood’s view on Beijing has—in Washington parlance—evolved, because China is now where the money is.

Malware Attack On Apple Said To Come From Eastern Europe

Michael Riley and Adam Satariano
Bloomberg
At least 40 companies including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. were targeted in malware attacks linked to an Eastern European gang of hackers that is trying steal company secrets.

Sinica Podcast

02.21.13

Death, Fraud, and Corporate Skullduggery

Kaiser Kuo & Bill Bishop from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, we talk shop about Caterpillar’s discovery of massive accounting fraud and subsequent $580 million write-down from a Chinese company the American equipment manufacturer acquired. We also look at the mysterious death of an...

China Denies It Is World’s Biggest Trader Despite Data Showing It Passed U.S. Last Year

The Associated Press
Washington Post
Official Chinese and American trade data indicate China passed the United States last year in total imports and exports by a margin of $3.866 trillion to $3.822 trillion.

China Vanke Enters U.S. Property Market With Tishman Deal

Bonnie Cao
Bloomberg
China Vanke Co., the biggest developer listed on Chinese exchanges, has entered a residential-property venture in San Francisco, its first foray into the U.S. real estate market.

S.E.C. Inquiry Into China Film Trade Unnerves Hollywood

Michael Cieply
New York Times
 Hunkered down. Lawyered up. Looking over your shoulder for the prosecutors. That is a not a comfortable way to do business. But it may become business as usual for those who have been struggling to make China both a customer for Hollywood...

Morgan Stanley's Latest Alibaba Estimates Suggest It's Worth $66 Billion-$168 Billion

Eric Jackson
Forbes
The most relevant comparison is to Tencent which is still the biggest Chinese Internet company still experiencing rapid growth – albeit at a slightly slower pace than Alibaba.  (Tencent did $1.88 billion in the last year and is currently...

China Plays By Its Own Rules While Going Global

Jack Chang
Associated Press
When Venezuela seized billions of dollars in assets from Exxon Mobil and other foreign companies, Chinese state banks and investors didn't blink. Over the past five years they have loaned Venezuela more than $35 billion.

China Plans to Build the Biggest Branch Campus in the World, but Will It Succeed?

Jason Lane and Kevin Kinser
Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chinese government announced recently that it will allow Xiamen University to establish a branch campus in Malaysia. 

U.S. Cybersecurity Plan Aimed at Keeping China out of America’s Networks

Associated Press
President Barack Obama signed an executive order aimed at helping protect the computer networks of crucial American industries from cyberattacks and prodded Congress to enact legislation that would go even further. 

Beijing Slams U.S. Sanctions on Chinese Companies

Teddy Ng
South China Morning Post
Beijing has denounced U.S. sanctions imposed on four Chinese companies and one individual last week for allegedly breaching a U.S. law designed to hamper the development of weapons of mass destruction by Iran, North Korea or Syria.

Conversation

02.08.13

Rich, Poor and Chinese—Does Anyone Trust Beijing to Bust the Corrupt?

Andrew J. Nathan, Susan Shirk & more
Andrew Nathan:The new Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping seems to be making some bold opening moves with its attacks on corruption and the announcement on February 5 of plans to reduce the polarization of incomes.  Does this mean Xi is...

Vipers and Beasts in the Year of the Little Dragon

Geremie Barme
China Story
A certain wariness surrounds the Snake, one of the twelve zoological signs of the traditional Chinese calendar, and not only because the reptile inspires fear and repulsion. 

Hewlett Directs Its Suppliers in China to Limit Student Labor

Keith Bradsher and David Barboza
New York Times
Hewlett-Packard, one of the world’s largest makers of computers and other electronics, is imposing new limits on the employment of students and temporary agency workers at factories across China. 

Celine Dion to Peform at China Central Television’s New Year Gala Show

Clarence Tsui
Hollywood Reporter
The Canadian singer will become the first Western artist to appear on the Chinese state broadcaster’s annual festive program, which is the most-watched TV event in the world.

Media

02.07.13

Chinese Beverage Maker Turns Legal Setback Into Viral Ad Campaign

This is no tempest in an herbal tea pot. The JDB Group, maker of China’s most popular herbal tea—one that raked in approximately 20 billion RMB (USD $3.2 billion) in revenues in 2012—lost another legal battle in its epic trademark war with the state...

Rupert Murdoch Tweets Chinese “Still Hacking” WSJ

BBC
BBC
Rupert Murdoch has said that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper remains under attack from Chinese hackers.

Foxconn Plans Chinese Union Vote

Kathrin Hille and Rahul Jacob
Financial Times
Foxconn, the contract manufacturer whose biggest customer is Apple, is preparing genuinely representative labour union elections in its factories in China for the first time, a powerful sign of changes in the workshop of the world demanded by an...

Barbaraians at the Digital Gate (Editorial)

WSJ Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal
On a visit to our offices last year, a U.S. lawmaker with knowledge of intelligence affairs explained that, when it comes to cyber-espionage, there are only two kinds of American companies these days: Those that have been hacked, and those that don...

Chinese Artist Crosses a Line

Joyce Lau
New York Times
In Hong Kong, a business city trying to turn itself into a global “art hub” with a steely determination and large amounts of cash, art events now involve so many government and corporate entities that it almost squeezes the fun out of it.

Caixin Media

02.04.13

Lights, Camera, Pending IPOs for Filmmakers

The cameras could be rolling soon for long-anticipated stock listings by the nation’s largest movie producer and foreign flick importer China Film Group, as well as a smaller but ambitious rival, Shanghai Film Group.The state-owned companies’ names...

China’s String of Fake Pearls (Blog)

Daniel W. Drezner
Foreign Policy
For the past few years, a low level theme that occasionally pops into my news feed is the idea of greater Sino-Pakistani cooperation.  Now this has a certain amount of realpolitik sense to it.  The United States and Pakistan are...

Rally Cry for the U.S. to Catch Up to the Chinese in Africa

Eric Olander & Cobus van Staden
In this episode of the China in Africa Podcast, hosts Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden focus on Delaware Senator Chris Coons' warning that unless the United States places a greater emphasis on Africa, it will be too late to catch up to the...

Five Predictions for China’s Auto Industry in the Year of the Snake

Michael Dunne
Wall Street Journal
In 2012, Chinese accounted for more than three out of four Buicks sold globally.  And many of the design elements of the current Buick lineup originated in China.

Chinese Hackers Targeted Wall Street Journal

Siobhan Gorman, Devlin Barrett, and...
Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal said its computer systems had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers for the apparent purpose of monitoring the newspaper's China coverage.

Hacking with Chinese Characteristics

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
The New York Times has come under attack by Chinese hackers just at the very moment that the new Chinese leadership, under Xi Jinping, has pledged to root our corruption before it destroys the Party.

Didier Drogba Leaves China: Inside a Failed Soccer Experiment

Austin Ramzy
Time
The relationship between the star Ivorian striker and the mediocre Chinese team was actually a six-month fling. Now after half a season in a Chinese league better known for poor play and corruption—the “Allegedly Super League,” as the ...

China Burns Half of Coal Consuption Worldwide, US Figures Show

Adam Vaughn
Guardian
US government figures shows that China overtook the US as the world's biggest carbon emitter in 2007 and became world's largest energy consumer in 2010

Translation of “Finnegan’s Wake” Sells in China

Didi Tang
Associated Press
The Chinese version is no easier to read than the original, the loyal-minded translator assures, but James Joyce‘s “Finnegans Wake” has still sold out its initial run in China — with the help of some big urban billboards.

Enduring Mao’s China Led Geomagic’s Ping Fu To See The World In 3D

Anthony Wing Kosner
Forbes
Bend Not Break is  Ping Fu's memoir of growing up during the Cultural Revolution and winding up founding a successful, important tech company in America.

“Cloud Atlas” Cut by 38 Minutes for China Audience

Louise Watt
Associated Press
Nearly 40 minutes were cut from the Hollywood film “Cloud Atlas” for Chinese audiences, deleting both gay and straight love scenes to satisfy local censors. 

How Social Networks Skirt Censorship in China

Mike Isaac
All Things Digital
WeChat, the social network owned by Tencent—China’s largest listed Internet company—provides a way around the traditional text-based censorship rained down upon users by the state.

An Overture from China Has Yet to Win Hollywood

Michael Cieply
New York Times
In September, China’s Dalian Wanda Group chairman and president said he would invest $10 billion in the U.S. To judge from the deal-making pace, it may take a while.

Apple and China: A Match Made in Heaven?

Zachary Keck
Diplomat
China has long played a major role in Apple’s success after it moved much of its manufacturing from the U.S. to China and other Asian nations in the 1990’s.

Caixin Media

01.20.13

How to Implement the “Going Out” Strategy

Now is the right time for China to implement its global outreach strategy.While seizing this opportunity, we should also guard against risk first, with a sense of calmness. This means adhering to business decisions and sound operations, considering...

ODI-lay Hee-ho: China's Overseas Investment

The Economist
Economist
China’s outward direct investment (ODI) exceeded $77 billion in 2012, an increase of 12.6% on the previous year.

Caixin Media

01.19.13

Shandong’s Slippery Gutter Oil Man

It’s oil with an extra something, but there’s nothing virgin about it. Pumped from sewers outside restaurants and drained from dumpsters, it’s cooking oil born from waste both human and mechanical.Known in China as “gutter oil,” it’s commonly used...

Economists React: China GDP Growth Hits 7.9% in Fourth Quarter

China Real Time Report
Wall Street Journal
Chinese growth is likely to stabilize around 8% this year after a more than two-year slowdown.

Economists React: China's GDP Growth Hits 7.9% in Fourth Quarter

China Real Time Report
Wall Street Journal
Chinese growth is likely to stabilize around 8% this year after a more than two-year slowdown. 

Investment into China Declined in 2012

Reuters
Reuters
Analysts said cooling growth in China’s foreign direct investment, or F.D.I., did not suggest that investors’ confidence in the country was waning.

China Hints at Far Wider Welcome to Overseas Investors

Neil Gough
Deal Book
China’s top securities regulator said foreign investment could be allowed to rise tenfold In what would be a drastic liberalization of huge, cloistered capital markets.

International Schools in China Point Students to the West

Lucy Hornby
Reuters
Some Chinese pay as much as 260,000 renminbi, or about $42,000, a year for a Western-style education and a possible ticket to a college overseas for their children.

Environmental Stocks Surge on China’s Smog Pollution Fears

William Kazer and Li Yue
Wall Street Journal
While Beijing struggled with pollution, prices of environmental protection stocks surged as investors bought stocks that could rise if policymakers say “enough.”