China’s economic situation has deteriorated over the past two months, says business analyst Shaun Rein in a discussion on CNBC. The hope for a financial bazooka to boost the economy by the government has not materialized and is unlikely to do so. The government seems fine with the current 4/5% growth and also lacks the money to spend as tax income has remained poor, while geopolitical challenges forces the Chinese government to be prudent too.Read More →

Why is China calling itself a democracy when it is not according to most definitions? China scholar Ian Johnson, a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, discusses this and other political issues at the Council on Foreign Relations. In the same way, it is not a dictatorship where Xi Jinping can decide on all issues in the country, he says.Read More →

Business analyst Shanghai Rein hits out at the NEV taxes the US has implemented and the EU is planning to start too. China has dealt with domestic pollution as asked by the rest of the world and developed its electric car industry, and now gets hit, he argues. While tensions between China and the EU are growing, they will not be as back at the US-China trade war, he expects, as China still needs investments from Europe.Read More →

China veteran Ian Johnson, author of China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future (September 2023), announces he will leave as senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and move from New York to Berlin. He will work as a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and work from Berlin starting on July 1, 2024, writing a new book on the misuses of religion in Xi’s China in the summer of 2024.Read More →

Foreign media too often focus on China’s crackdown on religion, but former foreign correspondent Ian Johnson, author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, sees an opposite trend as China’s government started to support traditional faiths, in an effort to gain new legitimacy, he writes in the Council on Foreign Relations. Read More →

Business analyst Shaun Rein discusses the current state of China’s economy, how consumer confidence is slowly recovering, and why the fear of geopolitical tensions stops them from spending more in the economy. Why investors should be careful in investing right now into the second economy.Read More →

Political analyst Victor Shih breaks down the relations between China, the US, and the rest of the world in a discussion from the Chevron Auditorium in the I-House on “China-US Futures: Pathways to Peaceful Coexistence”. Key takeaways: many problems perceived by American politicians with China are not as bad as they try to let us believe.Read More →

Business analyst Shaun Rein dives deeper into the China economy as consumer confidence in first-tier cities is lower than he has seen in 27 years and the government’s economic targets focus on the next 3-5 years, he tells CNBC. The government is unwilling and unable to rely on stiff financial bazookas as it did in the previous crisis of 2008. Economic growth of 5 percent is enough for the government now, as it wants to diminish the gap between haves and have-nots, he adds.Read More →