AI was a keyword in China’s 15th five-year plan, running from 2026 to 2030. “These are kind of concrete examples that big tech companies are taking actions to try to engage everyday people with advanced AI,” said Winston Ma, author of “The Digital War” and adjunct professor in the global AI-digital economy at Bastille Post.Read More →
China protested against the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, but economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® does not think this major upheaval will derail the planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, he says at CNBC.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 →
While most Chinese consumers still worry about their future, the top 10 percent wealthy had a surprisingly good 2025 and will be around spending during the Chinese New Year, says Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein at CNBC.Read More →
Hong Kong-based marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok looks at China’s second-richest woman, according to the 2025 Hurun rich list. “Zhou’s story rebukes the notion that success is the product of privilege or pedigree. She is living proof that it is possible to rise from the depths of poverty to the highest echelons of wealth and influence,” writes Ashley Dudarenok at the Jing Daily.Read More →
Chinese chip firm Montage Technology soared 64% in its Hong Kong IPO debut. Financial analyst Winston Ma, an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law and former head of North America for CIC, China’s sovereign wealth fund, explains how US efforts to curtail Chinese semiconductor and AI firms helped them in the current boost, he tells Business Times. “The strong lineup of global cornerstone buyers suggests that Chinese AI-related IPOs are attracting institutional investors back to the HKEX market again,” he saysRead More →
For a few years, China’s international retailer Temu – together with Shein – seemed to have a winning retail concept. But those days are over, says Hong-Kong-based marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok in The Rest of the World. Temu is running into barriers all over the world.Read More →
Extreme passion and energy are some of the key features of the Year of the Fire Horse (Wu Wu), a powerful appearance in the 60-year cycle of the zodiac.
Historically, the Year of the Fire Horse was viewed with a mix of awe and caution in East Asian cultures. Because the traits of the Fire Horse—independence and strong-headedness—clashed with traditional values of quietude and domesticity, ancient superstitions often labeled the year as “tumultuous.” However, in a modern context, these same traits are frequently celebrated as the marks of innovators, world travelers, and visionary leaders.Read More →
Already in early 2025, China watcher Kaiser Kuo predicted Western leaders would change their view on how to deal with China and Xi Jinping. In a discussion on Novara Media, those Western leaders are queuing up to go to Beijing to restore relations they just a few years ago warned against. And where does Donald Trump fit into that change?Read More →
Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report, explains in the state-owned China Daily how the attitude of the UK towards China has changed for the better.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 →