Not only high costs are stopping Chinese women from getting more children, as the government wants them to for offsetting the dramatic aging process of the country, writes journalist Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus, a novel, on prostitution in China,  in the South China Morning Post. “The reality is far more complex. One important reason, in my view, is that women have changed. They don’t care to be only the reproductive tool of the family or the state,” she writes.Read More →

Chinese consumers always had a preference for foreign brands, because of quality and status. But the wealthy Generation Z – the post-millennials – is turning the tables, warns branding analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order in the South China Morning Post.Read More →

China ages and its wealthy are looking for new ways to invest their money and secure their future, says a new report by Hurun and Taikang Life insurance. “The aging group expects to lead colorful and relaxed lives, and also to travel extensively after retirement,” Hurun chair Rupert Hoogewerf said to Global Times.Read More →

The world´s most populous country is facing an unprecedented crisis, as its population ages fast, tells former New York Times Shanghai-bureau chief Howard French to PBS. The fast rising demand for social security, health care and a diminishing work force, will narrow down China´s economic expansion in the near future. The aging crisis not only shows the immense failure of the one-child policy, it will also force the country to become more welcoming to much-needed immigrants.Read More →

Details about the new 5-year plan start to emerge. But political analyst Arthur Kroeber does not see a strongman Xi Jinping pushing ahead with reforms, rather the contrary, he tells Bloomberg. The inability to abandon population control all together showsthat, he says.Read More →

The famous film director Zhang Yimou was one of the last celebrities, scrutinized by a diligent internet for supposed breaches of the one-child policy. Chinese turn to the internet for real and imaginary injustice, explains internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn in Marketplace. “It’s a kind of Kangaroo Court mentality.”Read More →

The one-child policy has been one successful tool to eradicate poverty in China, today the growing number of old people is severely undermining the ability to pay decent pensions, warns professor Wang Jianmao of CEIBS in the People’s Daily. Companies might have to pay the bill.Read More →