China was pretty well off in the first month of the Iran war, but its economy is now feeling the backlash that other economies already felt earlier because of the lack of energy, says Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein at the Thinkers’ Forum. Now the global economy is going to hit a wall, he adds.Read More →

Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order,  dives into the upheaval in the Middle East and explains how a possible US financial crisis could make China the world’s largest economy, as he tells in a discussion with David Lin. Chinese feel Trump is the best thing that could happen to China, he adds.Read More →

Western companies systematically misread the AI strategy of China, says former Alibaba executive Sharon Gai in Computer Weekly. “The practical takeaway is not that Western companies should replicate China’s model. The regulatory, cultural, and political contexts are too different for direct imitation. But there are strategic lessons worth absorbing,” she writes.Read More →

Is the 2026 year of the fire horse going to bring dramatic change, as people in China say? Journalist Zhang Lijia, author of “Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China, dives into the meaning of the year of the fire horse. Happening once every 60 years, the previous year of the fire horse was 1966, marking the start of the Cultural Revolution, says Zhang Lijia at the China Decode.Read More →

Business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order, discusses a fundamental difference in the politics of China and the USA concerning the rich. China focuses on the 90% of the population who are not rich, while the US goes for the rich, he says at the Thinkers Forum.Read More →

Stagnation is one of China’s economic key issues, but most China experts miss what is really going on because they left the country a decade ago, says Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein to Glenn Diesen, author of “The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order”. Unlike the previous financial crisis, the Chinese are sitting on a load of money and they are not in panic, but also do not spend their resources.Read More →

While there has been a shift in language on domestic consumption at the recent China’s annual Central Economic Work Conference, leading economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, does not see a change in policies for China’s economy in 2026 toward supporting the sluggish domestic consumption, he says at a debate at the Asia Society.Read More →

Social commentator Zhang Lijia, author of  “Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China, used a visit with her daughters to the Nanjing memorial hall to discuss the recent tensions between China and Japan in the South China Morning Post. “In a region where history is unresolved, even forward-looking security policy is dragged into the past. The ghosts of the 1930s still whisper. It is tempting to ask: why can’t Asia reconcile as Europe did,” she asks herself.Read More →

When you do not acknowledge your own history, the same mistakes can be made again, says Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein, analysing the recent tensions between China and Japan. Japanese are rewriting history, he argues in the Thinkers Forum, from the hundreds of thousands of sex slaves in China and other parts of Asia, to today.Read More →

Leading China economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, looks at what is known about the upcoming 15th 5-year plan, bound to be approved by the National People’s Congress in March 2026. Most of the known information suggests no major changes, with an ongoing focus on manufacturing rather than consumption, as in the past, he tells Keith Yap in the Front Row Podcast.Read More →