China, with the exception of Hubei province, might be getting back to normal, the rest of the world is still bracing for a further outbreak of the coronavirus. Northern Italy shows remarkable similarities with the early weeks of the crisis in Wuhan: cramped medical facilities, expanding quarantine measure to stop the spread of the virus, and much uncertainty in countries and regions that still try to control the crisis. In China numbers of new patients are dropping, so – unless you might distrust those figures – its heavy-handed approach seems to be working at this list. But global stress on international economic relations seem far from over.
With all the justified criticism on the way China dealt the with coronavirus in the early weeks, the country did make some right choices later in the crisis as containment of the health issues was more important than keeping up the economy. More surprising it is that countries with a more developed health care system like Italy seem utterly unprepared for a major outbreak of the virus. Even a very solid country like Switzerland sees the number of coronavirus patients going up fast.Read More →

The China government is trying to push positive news in the way it handles the coronavirus crisis, but the economic fallout is only shaping up as the panic moves to other parts of the world. Airlines, shipping lines and other logistics and hospitality providers are maintaining the reduction on services, as demand is not yet picking up. Some logistic providers contemplate resuming services only in June, although they do not wish to confirm that less-favorable scenario.

Europe has become the latest victim of the coronavirus panic, and the number of patients rises, while numbers in the Americas are still low, but expected to go up too.Read More →

When you run behind social platforms, you always run behind the next generation consumers, says marketing guru Arnold Ma. You have to know what drives change, why China consumers have no legacy and – for example – while old-style supermarkets never took off in China.Read More →

Fighting the Covid-19 virus and saving the economy might not go very well together, says political analyst Victor Shih in Al Jazeera. While there is very little international supply chains can do at this stage, as Chinese governments make decisions, says Victor Shih, the message for the long run is: diversify.Read More →

China’ struggle against the coronavirus has been on the front pages worldwide on the past weeks. Western CEO’s of companies with operations in China have been calling for calm and try to convince their audiences all is well for those operations. The question is whether that is more than wishful thinking.

China has been into lunar festival mode over the past weeks and all offices and factories would have been closed anyway. Damage might have been obvious in the consumer industry as even outside Wuhan many inhabitants kept off the streets. But the major question is now, as the lunar festival holidays end, whether China’s massive work force returns to their workplaces.Read More →

By trying to take on China alone on trade, the US failed to achieve real results in its first trade deal, says trade-veteran Harry Broadman to Bloomberg. China did not adhere to the multilateral trade deal it closed by joining the WTO, but Donald Trump failed to address the issues related to that.Read More →

After a first symbolic truce, the world should brace for the next phase in the trade war between China and the US, warns leading economist Arthur Kroeber, according to Barron’s. China has stalled its economic reforms and mechanisms to contain the US power fail, and the technology war is likely to resume, he stresses.Read More →

Financial analyst Sara Hsu compares on her weblog China and the US in trying to see if they are using different methods for getting a competitive advantage. Both do spy on each other and third countries, and China uses the One Belt, One Road (BRI) program to expand its power.Read More →