HNA was the last in a row of Chinese conglomerates, losing support from their most important financial backers. In the slipstream details emerged about the hidden ownership structure behind HNA. But most of these ownership relations remain opaque says political analyst Victor Shih to Fortune.Read More →
A decade ago, in China cash was king. But in less than another decade, the same country could be the first fully cashless society, says business analyst Ben Cavender to AFP. Cavender estimates China’s mobile payment market is already 40-50 times larger than the United StatesRead More →
China is moving fast in developing self-driving cars, but also authorities move fast in paving the legal roads for those cars by developing Draft Guidelines, says Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub in Lexology. The ambitious approach is in line with the technological improvements, the government is having on its agenda.Read More →
China has become the testing ground of many international network marketing companies, as many Chinese consumers prefer foreign brands. But apart from opportunities, Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub also sees legal challenges of operating in this new promised land, he writes in Lexology.Read More →
The China Food and Drug Administration (“CFDA”) has released in April a draft regulation for supervision of so-called health food. Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub of King & Wood Mallesons sees it as an open way to discuss a new system of filing, and less registration, he writes in Lexology.Read More →
Western analysts often miss the point, when they look at the way China conducts business, says China watcher Andrew Batson at his weblog, and he points at an interesting aside in Ian Johnson’s book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao , when he writes about soft openings in China. Case in point: comments on China’s One-Belt, One-Road initiative. Batson: ” It’s already clear it’s the China book of the year.”Read More →
Japan’s discount-furniture king, Akio Nitori, dubbed the country’s IKEA, now wants to export its success into the region’s largest market: China. Business analyst Shaun Rein doubts whether their Japan success can be copied into China, he tells Bloomberg.Read More →
Shanghai-based VC William Bao Bean explains why the China startups he supports focus on South-East Asia and Eastern Europe, rather than the US. “We are trying to break the grip of Google and Facebook on startups.”Read More →
South-Korea was the latest country to suffer from economic boycott measures from China after it deployed THAAD missiles on its soil. Tourism backed out and Korean factories suffered surprise inspections. A standard procedure, says business analyst Shaun Rein to CBS. Norway, France, Japan, Taiwan and other suffered from similar boycotts.Read More →
Pleasing the China consumer has always been a challenge, but – as Tsingtao and Wanda discovered – consumers have become harder to get. Retail expert Ben Cavender nevertheless sees a lot of room for growth, he tells Reuters.Read More →
When Western companies discovered new management systems in Japan like Just-In-Time in the 1980s, they applied it fast,despite initial misgivings.But when they see now new ways of decentralizing corporate structures in Tencent and Haier, they are reluctant to take it serious, says Haier-watcher and IMD professor Bill Fischer at AP.Read More →
Rising wages have already put China in the same cost-league as Portugal and South-Africa, forcing manufacturers to low-wage countries. But that is only one challenge for a major shift in the labor market, says business analyst Ben Cavender to CNBC.Read More →