In numbers, the Chinese tourists might be reaching this year pre-pandemic levels, but their destinations will be more domestic and cheaper, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok at CNBC. She expects recovery in Chinese traveling internationally to take longer, partly as “the feeling that the rest of the world is mad and unsafe is even higher than in 2023.”Read More →
China business veteran Shaun Rein discusses with Cyrus Janssen how China has faced challenges since it opened up post-Corona. Outbound travel has not resumed, expected revenge spending did not happen and consumer confidence is at the lowest rate ever. No, he says, China is not yet back to normal, because consumers sit on their corona savings, unwilling to spend. And foreign investors, while CEOs are going to China, are hesitant to resume investing in China, at least till the end of 2023. But support for Xi Jinping is still there, he sees. Though, expect a tough 10-20 years.Read More →
China veteran Kaiser Kuo discusses the US approach of China, and how it should change, at the Centre of East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Read More →
Now China suddenly started to retract its zero-Covid strategy, strategic analyst Ian Johnson looks back at how the country got itself into this unprecedented mess at the Prospect. The economic slowdown and high unemployment “are all underlying issues that actually make the government’s challenge greater than first appears,” says Ian Johnson.Read More →
China’s leaders face unprecedented protest against its rigid anti-covid policy after earlier this week ten deaths in Urumqi were to blame for that. Political analyst Victor Shih sees China’s Communist Party walking on a tight rope, he says in the Hindustan Times.Read More →
The German government has become much more assertive about the country’s wheeling and dealing with China. Veteran China lawyer Mark Schaub visited over the past few weeks Berlin and Munich and felt the pulse of the German business communities toward China, he reports in his China Chit-chat. “Politicians in Germany have limited ability to influence or pressure German business. Consumers can be upset … but will become upset about something else 5 minutes later,” he writes.Read More →
China veteran Shaun Rein explains why the West does so poorly in understanding China, and why China’s government is doing such a bad job in explaining China to the rest of the world, in an interview with Cyrus Janssen.Read More →
H&M tries to retain market share in China after a consumer boycott of a range of Western fashion brands – including also Nike and Burberry – on its Xinjiang stance by launching two new brands. The results with the consumers in China have been mixed, says marketing expert Arnold Ma in Jing Daily.Read More →
US president Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping plan a virtual meeting next week, after months of rising tension between both economic giants. Political analyst Victor Shih sees the meeting as a step forward, he tells CNN.Read More →
A lot of speculations have marred the relations between Afghanistan’s Taliban and the outside world. For China for example the exploitation of rare earths shows up regularly, but China veteran Ian Johnson, a senior fellow at the CFR, explains why security in Xinjiang is key for China’s considerations, he tells in PRI.Read More →
China has been talking informally to the Taliban, but now the Islamic group has taken over neighboring Afghanistan, the situation is more tricky, says CFR-scholar Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao to CNBRead More →
Provincial governments in Sichuan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan have been cracking down on bitcoin mining, but it is not alone because of the usage of coal to generate cheap electricity, says strategic advisor Winston Wenyan Ma to Reuters.Read More →