China’s stringent zero-COVID policies are not able to contain the current omicron variant because of the highly infectious nature, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) in a press conference on Tuesday 17 May. But the WHO also added each country can make its own decisions, even when they do not make sense according to scientific evidence, reports AP.Read More →
Global companies have been warning of the major effects of China’s lockdown on their operations, curtailing Shanghai for more than six weeks. But they have very few alternatives apart from sitting out the ordeal, says Shanghai-based business analyst Ben Cavender to CNN. The corporate exodus from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine did not help. For sure, consumption in China is down.Read More →
Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein – in this sixth week of quarantine – explains why it was needed for the 26-million city to lock down fully.Read More →
Just as the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing ended, China’s media started to suggest the country is planning beyond the strict zero-covid policies later in the year. International travel has been virtually dead since early 2020, and many – including the China Speakers Bureau – have been waiting for a change in this policy.Read More →
How will people remember the Wuhan lockdown, two years ago at the start of the global coronavirus crisis, asks CFR-scholar Ian Johnson in a debate at the NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge on the book “The Wuhan Lockdown”, by Yang Guobin. How successful has the state been in suppressing the knowledge of this hiccup in communist rule in Wuhan, Ian Johnson asks the author.Read More →
Leading VC William Bao Bean explains how travel startups managed through the COVID-19 crisis at PhocusWire Pulse. In China, they survived by focusing on booming domestic travel, but the lack of international travel hit some severely. Some of the travel startups he guided to the market had to give up their efforts to enter the Asian market, while others adjusted to the difficult market conditions.Read More →
Never waste a good crisis, says investment expert Winston Wenyan Ma, quoting the other Winston, Winston Churchill. China used the pandemic crisis to accelerate its already ongoing digital transformation at a panel discussion to make a difference, he tells at the ORF at a panel discussion.Read More →
Running the Olympic games under a pandemic in Tokyo might hurt the Olympic brand, as many negative incidents have shown already. But marketing expert Arnold Ma is sure the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 will do the opposite, he tells in Campaign Asia.Read More →
The State Council, China’s cabinet, has set a provisional timeline for COVID-19 border controls that runs well into the second half of 2022, reports the Wall Street Journal. The plan was made in a meeting half-May, the report says.Read More →
China might be ready to open its borders again partially in the second half of 2022, says leading virus expert Zhang Wenhong on a health forum in Qingdao in June, according to the South China Morning Post. That partial opening will depend on the speed of China’s vaccination program, he added.Read More →
China’s consumption is growing again and sales growth is recovering on a solid post-COVID10 track, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok on her vlog. Government, tech companies, and consumers have their noses in the same direction.Read More →
China counts more than 1,000 billionaires in US dollar terms, overtaking solidly the US, according to the Hurun Rich List ranking. “We’re currently in the heart of a new industrial revolution, with new technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud, data and e-commerce creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and leading to a concentration of wealth and economic power on a scale never seen before,” said Hurun Report Chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, according to Shine. Read More →