Ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing, the main competitor of Uber, is trying to move upscale, into self-driving cars, foreign cooperation and projects out of China, but at home, they still face basic challenges, says Shanghai-based business analyst Ben Cavender. Local authorities focus on illegal drivers, according to Reuters.Read More →

Trump is making China great again, argues super-investor Jim Rogers, author of Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets, at Nasdaq. Trade wars have always failed in the past, he says, and wonders if Trump is going to be the only exception in history.Read More →

China’s recent troubles with Islam and unruly provinces like Xinjiang are not new, nor typically for communist rule, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, for the New York Review of books. “It would be tempting to say that all of this is just typical Communist excess, something in the party’s DNA that forces it to turn to repression and violence to solve problems. But the long history of Islam’s persecution points to older, deeper problems in the Chinese worldview.”Read More →

In Southern Beijing, China is building the prestigious Beijing Daxing International Airport, due to open next September and serving up to 72 million passengers annually by 2025. But it is not only glamor being constructed, writes Beijing-based author Ian Johnson for the New York Times. If the military would not tightly control the Chinese airspace, the airport would not be needed to start with.Read More →

The upcoming Trump-Xi meeting in Argentina generates some hope, but economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, does not expect a fast end to the ongoing trade war between the world’s largest economies, he tells at NPR. NPR: ARTHUR KROEBER: I think people in the U.S.Read More →

Fashion brand Dolce&Gabbana got blamed for racism by its Chinese customers after using a promotional video, celebrities withdrew from a show planned for Wednesday in Shanghai and the brand withdrew its goods. The damage to the brand will be lasting, says branding expert Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order to AP.Read More →