Learning Mandarin is a way to open your mind and the world, says marketing guru Arnold Ma to the British Council, since still a small part of the Chinese speak foreign languages.Read More →
China has announced the ban on micro beads – solid plastic particles of less than one millimeter – in cosmetics by the end of 2020, writes China lawyer Mark Schaub at the China Law Insight. “The clock is ticking for cosmetics companies – domestic and international alike. Alternative ingredients need to be sourced quickly,” says Mark Schaub.Read More →
Foreign media mostly focus on China’s crackdown on religion, but it’s approach has become much more nuanced, says journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, at the New York Times. Two truly global religions, Islam and Christianity, cause China’s leadership most trouble.Read More →
Tencent’s WeChat has been an unprecedented success story on the China internet. But new platforms are undermining the dominance of WeChat, says marketing expert Arnold Ma, CEO of London-based Qumin, at CBBC. Short-video medium Douyin is one of them.Read More →
Getting into hot water with China’s consumers, its government or both happens regularly to foreign brands. Business analyst Shaun Rein uses the latest NBA-upheaval to explain how those boycotts work, and how foreign brands can deal with them, according to the Marketplace.Read More →
China’s women are no longer satisfied with the marriages they took in the past for granted, says Zhang Lijia, journalist and author of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China, in the South China Morning Post. “Although gradually easing, there’s still stigma attached to divorce,” she adds.Read More →
Quality, price and value drive China’s consumers, not patriotism, says business analyst Shaun Rein in the LA Times. They might say something patriotic, but that is not key for their purchases, although China’s media might suggest nationalism is most important for consumers.Read More →
Arnold Ma, CEO of the London-based marketing agency Qumin, has decided to join the China Speakers Bureau.
His focus is on China’s opening up to global markets, with a specialty on the country’s millenniums and subcultures that are becoming key for global companies trying to finetune their China operations.Read More →
Religion has returned to the center of politics, argues journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao at the McGrath Institute for church life. Religion has returned to center of society over the past decades.Read More →
China’s central government has been trying to sinicize religion, and that had especially a major effect on Christianity, writes journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. For the New York Review of Books, he reviews Jesus in Asia by R.S. Sugirtharajah, but starts with a thorough overview of Beijing’s efforts to curtail Read More →
Sustainability might have been high on the agenda of major fashion brands, most consumers in China still not buy into the concept, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok at the Jing Daily. But there is hope for the future as brands focus on the young and future consumers.Read More →
China can send in heavy police or army to put down the devastating protests in Hong Kong. But that would devastate its “One Country, Two Systems” approach, and nobody – including Taiwan – would trust China again, writes veteran journalist Howard French in The Guardian.Read More →