The internet in China has become the country’s public sphere, says China watcher Kaiser Kuo, former Baidu communication director, at the Paulson Institute. Despite blocked websites and government control, it is the place where netizens express their opinions and discuss.Read More →

Journalist Howard French’s book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power is reviewed by the Globe&Mail. Key argument: French counters the Chinese narrative of a benevolent force, unlike the greedy Western colonizators. And on Trump: “When two emperors appear simultaneously, one must be destroyed.”Read More →

Journalist Ian Johnson discusses his forthcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the return of religion in China. Chinese want now to do more than only make money, he says. They are looking what brings us together. What makes China tick?Read More →

How do China’s current global efforts to expand its power, link to its past as a world might? Journalist Howard French explores in his new book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power the historical roots of China’s position as a world power.Read More →

In China most women enter the prostitution on their own free will. The government is criminalizing them, forcing them into a submissive position. What can be done? Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution researched the sex trade in China, and possible solutions and discusses government approaches.Read More →

One remarkable conclusion by author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on sex work in China is her conclusion that prostitution in China is largely a free choice, where women are free to enter, and free to leave. Yes, there is economic pressure, but no organized crime or human trafficking on a major scale, she says.Read More →

China is becoming fast one of the most innovative markets, explains Shanghai-based managing director William Bao Bean of the Chinaccelerator. Fintech and mobile will leave their marks on 2017, he explains to a non-Chinese audience. While startups have a hard time to find funding, 9% of the startups in Shenzhen get one million US dollar in funding. In stead of joining foreign multinationals, young Chinese prefer now an entrepreneurial career.Read More →

Social mobility between the generations in China has stalled, argues author Zhang Lijia, even more than elsewhere. While she moved herself from factory worker to a social commentator, and recently wrote Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China, most Chinese are currently stuck socially where they were born.Read More →

Author Zhang Lijia explored the life of more than ten million women in the sex trade in China for her book Lotus: A Novel. How is the trade organized? How does their life look like, and how voluntary is a choice to go into prostitution? Zhang Lijia spent years on the ground, and comes with a few remarkable conclusions. Organized crime has only little grip on prostitution, and most is organized by women themselves.Read More →

Journalist Howard French, author of the forthcoming book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Powerdiscusses with Jeff Wasserstrom China´s mindset as a geopolitical power and its problem to reinvent itself in developing a new, true Chinese story during the upcoming era of US president Donald Trump.Read More →

China´s state media have gone in overdrive pointing out, what they call, the decline of US democracy, Zhang Lijia, author of Socialism Is Great!: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China tells at CNN. “They have gone into an overdrive,” she tells, although the official reactions have remained polite, naming this a win-win situation. Hillary Clinton, much more than Donald Trump, was seen as a potential anti-China force in the US.Read More →

Chinese internet companies took the lead in selling through social commerce, rather than poorly working ads. China entrepreneur William Bao Bean explains how China is taking the lead from Western companies, at GetGlobal 2016 in Los Angeles. “Traditional ads are under pressure.”Read More →