Berlin-based journalist and researcher Ian Johnson, author of  The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Ma0,  joins an Asia Society panel on moral authority and how the Chinese government has dealt with faiths over the past decade. While Christianity and Islam are curtailed, traditional faiths are embraced, he says. Other participants include professor Xi Lian, and Whitman College Assistant Professor Yuan Xiaobo. Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis Fellow G.A. Donovan moderates the conversation.Read More →

Despite the hope of the international financial community, China is not heading for structural reforms, says leading economist Arthur Kroeber, author of  China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, to CNBC. Pushing up demand is not high on the agenda for China’s leadership, he says, and they do not want to push up debts levels to new heights.Read More →

China’s massive financial stimulus is good for the short term, but the economy needs more structural change, away from real estate, says Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein to CNBC. While it is good Xi Jinping moves away from politics and ideology and turns to the economy, more is needed to restore long-term confidence in the economy by the consumers, he adds.Read More →

Independent Australia reviews Ian Johnson’s latest book Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future and supports his effort to avoid pressure from the government to forget the past. “Johnson gives us access to some of the recent events that have already been obliterated from Communist China’s official history, from the murderous disasters of Mao’s crackdowns on critical thinking to the cult rise of Xi Jinping.”Read More →

China’s economic situation has deteriorated over the past two months, says business analyst Shaun Rein in a discussion on CNBC. The hope for a financial bazooka to boost the economy by the government has not materialized and is unlikely to do so. The government seems fine with the current 4/5% growth and also lacks the money to spend as tax income has remained poor, while geopolitical challenges forces the Chinese government to be prudent too.Read More →

Why is China calling itself a democracy when it is not according to most definitions? China scholar Ian Johnson, a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, discusses this and other political issues at the Council on Foreign Relations. In the same way, it is not a dictatorship where Xi Jinping can decide on all issues in the country, he says.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 →

China veteran Ian Johnson, author of China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future (September 2023), announces he will leave as senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and move from New York to Berlin. He will work as a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and work from Berlin starting on July 1, 2024, writing a new book on the misuses of religion in Xi’s China in the summer of 2024.Read More →

Foreign media too often focus on China’s crackdown on religion, but former foreign correspondent Ian Johnson, author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, sees an opposite trend as China’s government started to support traditional faiths, in an effort to gain new legitimacy, he writes in the Council on Foreign Relations. Read More →

Business analyst Shaun Rein discusses the current state of China’s economy, how consumer confidence is slowly recovering, and why the fear of geopolitical tensions stops them from spending more in the economy. Why investors should be careful in investing right now into the second economy.Read More →