Fashion has been changing massively, as low-cost manufacturing moved from China to other countries, and the fashion brand focus on value, more than on cheap production, tells Shanghai-based retail expert Ben Cavender in Just-Style. And the transition process in fashion brands will continue to cause pain, as robots move in.Read More →

Sino-American China veteran and rock star Kaiser Kuo will return to China in February and March 2017 for several visits. It will be the first time for him to visit after he left his job as communication director at internet giant Baidu earlier this year. He will visit Shanghai for a speech in the third week of March 2017.Read More →

WeChat has been for long the golden grail for marketing to China´s consumers. But those days are over, says innovation expert William Bao Bean, director of the Shanghai-based ChinaAccelerator to TechNode. Marketing needs more platforms than WeChat, although the Tencent tool is still an important center piece.Read More →

Journalist Howard French, author of the forthcoming book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Powerdiscusses with Jeff Wasserstrom China´s mindset as a geopolitical power and its problem to reinvent itself in developing a new, true Chinese story during the upcoming era of US president Donald Trump.Read More →

Journalist Howard French will publish in March 2017 his new book Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power on China´s self image as a geopolitical power in the past and the future. What is going to happen now Xi Jinping has to deal with this other muscular nationalists, Donald Trump.Read More →

Victoria Secret took on China online, but has now decided to open its first offline retail flagship store in Shanghai. They move very cautiously, says retail expert Ben Cavender in AdAge, and they have a fair chance of getting it right in one of the most difficult retail markets in the world.Read More →

After the election of Donald Trump as US president and the possible derailment of Sino-US relations, other countries, like Canada, see opportunities in making trade deals. But striking a balance in trade relations is never straight forward, warns political analyst Victor Shih in the Globe&Mail.Read More →

When you deal with consumers in China, WeChat and its payment systems, cannot be ignored. Starbucks did so for years, and lost much business, says business analyst Shaun Rein to Bloomberg. The American company now joined WeChat, although concerns about data safety remain.Read More →

China´s consumers have been eager purchasers of foreign products, but getting them at the right price proved to be troublesome. New startups are going to make that choice easier, predicts William Bao Bean, general partner at SOSV and managing director of Chinaccelerator, in TechNode, after closing days of presentations by startups.Read More →

The world is still trying to make sense out of president-elect Trump´s Taiwan call, and what it means for the future. China veteran Kaiser Kuo argues that the US should rethink its now 40-year relationship with the island, but certainly does not think Trump picked the best way and time to do so, he writes at SupChina.Read More →

Unlike most observers and diplomatic professionals, strategy analyst Shaun Rein sees president-elect´s Trump´s call to Taiwan as a brilliant move, with only a little downside, he writes in CNN. By getting this leverage, he proves to move smarter than president Obama, writes Rein.Read More →