China’s authorities are trying to avoid 300 million migrant workers to go home for Chinese New Year, in an effort to avoid another embarrassing corona lockdown like in 2020, says leading economist Arthur Kroeber in the New York Times.Read More →
Former US President Donald Trump tried to derail relations with China by banning stocks from Chinese companies at US stock markets. Now, under President Joe Biden, certainty for stock markets including the Chinese shares is key, says former White House advisor Harry Broadman at US News. Although there might be some other dangers.Read More →
Overwork in China – called the 996 culture – is rampant, especially in the IT industry. The recent death of a Pinduoduo employee also shocked social commentator Zhang Lijia. For her, this cannot be solved by the industry or employees, but the government should step in, she writes in the South China Morning Post.Read More →
The finalization of the China-EU investment agreement – after seven years of negotiations – on December 30, 2020, is a big deal, says London-based China lawyer Mark Schaub in an overview of the fallout of the deal for the China Law Insight. “Is it a Big Deal? – Yes. China is the EU’s second-largest trading partner and the EU is China’s largest trading partner. Over Euro1 billion per day of trade flows between these two giants.”Read More →
China watcher Shaun Rein sends his seasonal greetings from the Zhejiang Province tea fields and discusses how the world looks at China as the second-largest economy.Read More →
Former White House official Harry Broadman discusses the future of relations between China and its trade partners. He hopes and expects that after Joe Biden takes over from current US President Donald Trump collective action between trade partners will be higher on the agenda, he tells Bloomberg. With a strong focus on Canada.Read More →
Journalist and academic Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao discusses why religion has become such an important issue in China, both in domestic and international debates at the Bridge Projects.Read More →
The massive US$34.5 billion IPO by Jack Ma’s Ant Group has been derailed by regulatory action, days before its listing, and that does not make the investors happy, says political analyst Shaun Rein at AP. The decision also might rattle Chinese entrepreneurs who were considering selling shares on their own country’s market, said Rein.Read More →
China’s leadership is this week drafting its new 5-year plan. Financial analyst Sara Hsu expects an ongoing shift from an export-driven economy to more domestic consumption, she tells at CNBC International. “China realizes it cannot rely on export as it did in the past,” she says.Read More →
Not authoritarian rule but solid support from China’s citizens allowed its government to beat the Covid-19 and effectively deal with the coronavirus crisis, argues Singapore-based journalist Ian Johnson, in the New York Review of Books. He uses the Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City by Fang Fang, to show the government did not silence critics but did win majority support by its people, helped by indeed heavily manipulated media in China.Read More →
China got itself into trouble a few times when lenders who got into problems paying back debts. When China offers the same loans commercial banks can offer but without political ties, China has not so much extra to give, says strategic analyst Harry Broadman about the country’s’ international debt policies in the Africa Report, taking Zambia as an example.Read More →
Compliance issues are paramount for foreign companies in China and boardrooms too often ignore them because they think they are too complicated, says business analyst Harry Broadman.Read More →