London-based China veteran Mark Schaub summarizes in his China Chit-chat newsletter the meetings his law firm had with 24 Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) from China over the last three months of 2023. They were checking out opportunities in Europe and the Middle East, partly because their offspring was not really interested in joining their China business. They would look for lessons from their European counterparts but failed because of the differences between Chinese and Europeans, and because the concept of paying for professional legal advice did not yet take root among the Chinese visitors.Read More →

China, with the exception of Hubei province, might be getting back to normal, the rest of the world is still bracing for a further outbreak of the coronavirus. Northern Italy shows remarkable similarities with the early weeks of the crisis in Wuhan: cramped medical facilities, expanding quarantine measure to stop the spread of the virus, and much uncertainty in countries and regions that still try to control the crisis. In China numbers of new patients are dropping, so – unless you might distrust those figures – its heavy-handed approach seems to be working at this list. But global stress on international economic relations seem far from over.
With all the justified criticism on the way China dealt the with coronavirus in the early weeks, the country did make some right choices later in the crisis as containment of the health issues was more important than keeping up the economy. More surprising it is that countries with a more developed health care system like Italy seem utterly unprepared for a major outbreak of the virus. Even a very solid country like Switzerland sees the number of coronavirus patients going up fast.Read More →

One of the major global initiatives by China was the massive Belt and Road Initiative, reviving the old silk roads. In May 2017 a major international conference showed what our experts were already expecting: now all roads lead to China. Even countries who suffered from difficult relations with China, including both Koreas, appeared in Beijing.Larger than the former Marshall Plan after the Second World War, OBOR is going to redefine global trade.Read More →

Where do they go to, where do they stay. The travel industry is eagerly looking at the luxury traveler from China. The latest Hurun Chinese Luxury Traveller report shows some answers: they increasingly go for luxury homes instead of hotels, says Hurun chairman Rupert Hoogewerf to the South China Morning Post.Read More →

Two very different worldviews conflicted with each other at the just-concluded World Economic Forum in Davos: those of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, although Trump was not physically present. Journalist Kaiser Kuo attended, and looked increasing amazement to the developing scenes, he writes at SupChina. “I do see two different worldviews. And I know which one I find much, much more compelling.”Read More →

President Xi Jinping´s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been greeted with enthusiasm by global corporate leaders, confronted with opposite movements from Donald Trump and the Brexit. But political analyst Victor Shih warns it does not mean China is heartily embracing economic liberalism, he tells the LA Times.Read More →

Both the US and the UK retain their top positions as a destination for study, reveals the Hurun Chinese Luxury Consumer Survey. They are followed by Australia and Canada. Surprising newcomer is New Zealand at not five, Hurun founder Rupert Hoogewerf tells in the PieNews.Read More →

The China Speakers Bureau will be on tour in #Europe in the coming months. Cities we travel too are #Geneva, #Lausanne, #Prague and #Brussels. If you are interested in setting up a meeting, do get in touch, so we can see when and how our agenda´s can match.Read More →

Localizing has been the mantra of many foreign firms in China, but in Nestle´s dairy milk case that failed. In his book The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia Shaun Rein explains what the Swiss company did wrong. A snippet from his book.Read More →