China’s developers have been avid users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the company’s ban of usage in China might come as a short-time shock, says innovation expert Winston Ma in the Guardian. But in the long run, it will help those China-based competitors as they are forced – and likely successful, in developing alternatives, he adds.Read More →

Business analyst Shanghai Rein hits out at the NEV taxes the US has implemented and the EU is planning to start too. China has dealt with domestic pollution as asked by the rest of the world and developed its electric car industry, and now gets hit, he argues. While tensions between China and the EU are growing, they will not be as back at the US-China trade war, he expects, as China still needs investments from Europe.Read More →

What happened to former foreign minister Qin Gang one year ago is still unclear. After a stellar career, the sudden disappearance of Qin triggered a slew of rumors, including an extramarital affair with a British spy, an affair with Xi Jinping’s daughter, and more speculations. Political analyst Victor Shih tells Politico that China’s leadership is still unsure of how to handle this case.Read More →

During the Cold War, authors from Eastern Europe and Russia belonged to household names among Western elites, but today translations of their Chinese counterparts failed to make it to Western bookshelves, says Ian Johnson, author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future. One of the reasons is the changed commercial business models of publishing houses, he says in an extensive interview in China Law & Policies.Read More →

Political analyst Victor Shih breaks down the relations between China, the US, and the rest of the world in a discussion from the Chevron Auditorium in the I-House on “China-US Futures: Pathways to Peaceful Coexistence”. Key takeaways: many problems perceived by American politicians with China are not as bad as they try to let us believe.Read More →

US lawmakers have started debate on a law that would ban the successful TikTok app.  Political analyst Kaiser Kuo dismisses the effort as misguided at best, he writes in the ChinaFile. “In a sense, the threat of TikTok is real: In this crisis of confidence, and in a state of moral panic that we’ll look back on red-faced a decade out, TikTok is causing us to inflict grievous self-harm.”Read More →

Financial expert Victor Shih dives into the 2024 figures at the annual NPC and concludes China cannot roll over debts anymore and finance its budget like it did before. He tells Bloomberg that central state policies have increasingly replaced a market-driven economy.Read More →

China will continue to focus on supporting its manufacturing power, instead of changing to household subsidies, says economist Victor Shih, out of line with many other economists who expect support for consumption, as reported by Al Jazeera. Shih added: “There are 1.4 billion people in China, so comprehensive social assistance would be extremely expensive, especially in a deflationary context.”Read More →

China will implement a new PRC company law and veteran lawyer Mark Schaub expects most people will doze off before they make it to the end of that law. In his China Chit-Chat website, he summarizes the main changes and insists you should pay attention. He covers important issues like: “The new PRC Company Law sets a 5-year deadline to make promised capital contributions. Crucially this requirement will apply retrospectively. Ouch!” And who is the boss in a company, and how to fire a director.Read More →