In China, many citizens looked with admiration at the US, but those days are certainly over, says London-based journalist Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel, in an opinion piece at the South China Morning Post. Trump forced educated Chinese to rethink long-held assumptions about democracy, modernity, and the direction of history itself, she argues.Read More →

China, Africa, and the US are pretty different bedfellows when it comes to trade, says political analyst Harry Broadman to Al Jazeera. China seems to have a better understanding of Africa, where the US was in the past mainly focused on opening the African markets for its own benefit, he adds.Read More →

In the short run, the trade deficit between China and Africa might grow. Still, in the long run, China has a profound interest in helping Africa to develop its economy, including the abolishment of trade tariffs for most African countries, says business analyst Shaun Rein at Al Jazeera. Now China focuses on getting raw material, but its interest is broader, he adds.Read More →

Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein explains at CNBC why we cannot expect too much from the ongoing meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Trump has no credibility at all in Beijing, he says.Read More →

China is trying to close a route for Chinese companies to work through Singapore to collaborate with the US, says political analyst Winston Ma, author of The Digital War: How China’s Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace, to Newsweek. By banning Meta from purchasing AI startup Manus, China wants to avoid national security issues on AI and other Chinese innovations, he adds.Read More →

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 →