For a long time, Hong Kong was the place to go for visitors from the mainland, but the resentment against mainlanders in Hong Kong grew, says retail analyst and author Shaun Rein in Todayonline, and as Chinese got more travel alternatives, Hong Kong sees sales of luxury goods drop dramatically.Read More →
Disappearing Hong Kong publishers have put them on the international agenda. Journalist Ian Johnson got the opportunity to interview HK publisher Bao Pu on his critical books about China and his kidnapped colleagues for the New York Review of Books.Read More →
For more than a decade the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post has been destroying its image as a quality paper it still was in the 1990. Key journalists were fired or walked away voluntarily. The purchase by Alibaba gives observers new reason for worry. It does not make sense, says business analyst Shaun Rein in the Star Beacon Herald.Read More →
Books need a book number to get published and sold in China, although every store would have a little counter of banned or not approved books. But censorship rules have become stricter enforced over the years and when an autobiography of Li Rui, a retired party official, got confiscated at an airport, his daughter decided to take the case to court, writes journalist Ian Johnson in the New York Times.Read More →
Investments are flooding into China´s innovative industries. But investing in China is a completely different game from the traditional VC approach, tells William Bao Bean, Managing Director of Chinaccelerator, in VentureCon Japan, according to E27. China is providing more finance, and more competition.Read More →
China´s central government is pushing offshore RMB bonds as a tool to support Chinese firms to go abroad. Financial analyst Sara Hsu looks at the current state of offshore RMB bonds, and expects a massive expansion, she writes in the Diplomat.Read More →
A slowdown of art sales in China is not only caused by the anti-graft campaign or the economic slowdown, but also by a growing sophistication of the art collectors, says China Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf in Barrons. They are not only going for big-ticket super-stars, but develop their own appreciation.Read More →
China´s lawmakers are preparing for their annual sessions of the advisory CPPCC and the National People´s Congress. Among them a large amount of influential business people. Political analyst Victor Shih explains the interaction between business and politics in China in the New York Times.Read More →
Wages have been rising fast in China, and companies are struggling to improve productivity of their workers to remain competitive. There is still much to win, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia in Business Week.Read More →
Unlike many other large cities, China has been avoiding the establishment of large slums and related instability, argues author Jeremy Wallace in an interview with journalist Ian Johnson at the New York Times. The abolishment of the hukou system is not expected any time soon, since it serves the government well.Read More →
Until last week both Jack Ma of Alibaba and Wang Jianlin were in the race to become the richest man in China in 2014. A poor IPO in Hong Kong spoiled his chances, explains China Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf, in the China Daily. But it is not the end of the game.Read More →
For a short while Alibaba´s chairman Jack Ma looked like he was heading for the position of richest person in China in 2014. But at the end of the year, Wanda chairman Wang Lianlin is contesting that position, as he brings two firms to the Hong Kong stock exchange, tells China Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf to WSJ wealth editor Wei Gu.Read More →