China is becoming fast one of the most innovative markets, explains Shanghai-based managing director William Bao Bean of the Chinaccelerator. Fintech and mobile will leave their marks on 2017, he explains to a non-Chinese audience. While startups have a hard time to find funding, 9% of the startups in Shenzhen get one million US dollar in funding. In stead of joining foreign multinationals, young Chinese prefer now an entrepreneurial career.Read More →

First reviews of journalist Zhang Lijia´s touching Lotus: A Novel, are coming in, like here from the Star Tribune, focusing on the Chinese migrants, the unsung heroes who made the country´s economic development possible. “Lotus and Bing, as well as the secondary characters, feel like real, rounded human beings. Zhang portrays them compassionately.”Read More →

One of the main reasons Chinese consumers buy themselves silly abroad – including Hong Kong – is the high difference in pricing of similar products in mainland China. Cosmetic giants Estee Lauder and AmorePacific have lower their prices up to 30 percent, as also the government is revamping its import fees. More will follow, tells retail analyst Ben Cavender to the South China Morning Post.Read More →

Recent rumors about better relations between China´s central government and the Vatican has put attention to the small but influential following of the Vatican in China. Author Ian Johnson of the forthcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao elaborates at the NPR.Read More →

The sudden death of George Michael triggered off found memories in Beijing, where Michael´s band Wham! was one of the first to hit the stage after China started to open up in the 1980s. “They certainly had in impact on China, says Kaiser Kuo, now himself a rock legend in China, to Reuters.Read More →

Sino-American China veteran and rock star Kaiser Kuo will return to China in February and March 2017 for several visits. It will be the first time for him to visit after he left his job as communication director at internet giant Baidu earlier this year. He will visit Shanghai for a speech in the third week of March 2017.Read More →

WeChat has been for long the golden grail for marketing to China´s consumers. But those days are over, says innovation expert William Bao Bean, director of the Shanghai-based ChinaAccelerator to TechNode. Marketing needs more platforms than WeChat, although the Tencent tool is still an important center piece.Read More →

Journalist Howard French, author of the forthcoming book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Powerdiscusses with Jeff Wasserstrom China´s mindset as a geopolitical power and its problem to reinvent itself in developing a new, true Chinese story during the upcoming era of US president Donald Trump.Read More →

Victoria Secret took on China online, but has now decided to open its first offline retail flagship store in Shanghai. They move very cautiously, says retail expert Ben Cavender in AdAge, and they have a fair chance of getting it right in one of the most difficult retail markets in the world.Read More →

After the election of Donald Trump as US president and the possible derailment of Sino-US relations, other countries, like Canada, see opportunities in making trade deals. But striking a balance in trade relations is never straight forward, warns political analyst Victor Shih in the Globe&Mail.Read More →