When Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba goes public some time after Labor Day it is expected be one the largest initial public offerings in history. This week, a story in The New York Times shed light on ties between Alibaba and the sons and grandsons of some of the highest ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party.
A Chinese manufacturing gauge rose to an 18-month high in July, bolstering the government’s chances of meeting its 2014 economic-growth target of about 7.5 percent.
China’s government knows something investors don’t—well, a lot of things actually. But that is especially true when it comes to the country’s labor market.
Amid consolidation chatter in the U.S., the owner of exhibition giant AMC says it plans to become a “real” multinational company and “intensify” its investment in the entertainment sector globally.
OSI Group Inc., the Ilinois-based parent of the Shanghai operation under scrutiny, dispatched a team of its “global experts” to address the problems in China as its CEO vowed that the “completely unacceptable” missteps wouldn't happen again.
David Wolf is Managing Director of Allison+Partners’ Global China Practice. Counseling American, Chinese, and European clients in a range of industries, Wolf created and leads a practice focused on helping clients manage the unique communications and marketing challenges that arise when Western firms do business in China, and when Chinese firms expand outside of the PRC. David is a recognized leader in the industry in China and a pioneer in the field of strategic corporate communications.
In addition, David is called upon by regional and global media as an analyst and commentator on business in China, and contributes to publications including Foreign Policy, The Holmes Report, EuroBiz, Advertising Age magazine, and WARC. David is an Editorial Advisor for the China Economic Quarterly, and is the author of Making the Connection: The Peaceful Rise of China’s Telecommunications Giants (Wolf Group Asia, 2012). Wolf’s next book, Public Relations in China: Building and Defending Your Brand in the PRC, will be published by Palgrave in July 2015.
Prior to joining Allison+Partners, Wolf spent seven years as President and Chief Executive Officer of Wolf Group Asia (WGA), a Beijing-based strategic corporate communications advisory firm. Serving clients including Discovery Networks, Motorola Mobility, Google, Foxconn, Blizzard, AOL, About.com, and Irdeto, WGA won both client and industry accolades and was named Asia-Pacific Boutique Consultancy of the Year for 2012 by SABRE/Holmes Report.
Before starting WGA in 2005, Wolf led the Asia-Pacific Technology Practice for Burson-Marsteller, leading a team of nearly 50 professionals in offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, and Sydney. He took the Asia-Pacific post after having founded B-M's Technology Practice in China in 2000, growing it into China's largest technology, media, and telecommunications public relations organization and winning a dozen major industry awards for client work.
Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, Wolf was Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Claydon Gescher Associates (CGA), a boutique strategy and public affairs consultancy based in Beijing with a focus on media, entertainment, and telecommunications.
Wolf lived in China for nearly two decades, and now divides his time between China and the U.S. He holds a Masters degree in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of California, Davis. In addition to English, he is fluent in Mandarin and Spanish. He also blogs at Silicon Hutong and The Peking Review.
A Chinese blogger known for criticizing the ruling Communist Party was sentenced on Wednesday to six-and-a-half years in jail, state media said, as authorities pursue a crackdown on online “rumors”.
From their website:
The Rakyat Post is an open platform committed to getting to the heart of the matter. We aim to approach current issues from different perspectives.
Part of a city in north-west China has been sealed off and dozens of people placed in quarantine after a man died of bubonic plague, state media say.
How does one become the leader of the world's newest superpower? And who holds the real power in the Chinese system? China has become the powerhouse of the world economy and home to one in five of the world's population, yet we know almost nothing of the people who lead it. In The New Emperors, the noted China expert Kerry Brown journeys deep into the heart of the Communist Party. China's system might have its roots in peasant rebellion but it is now firmly under the control of a power-conscious Beijing elite, almost half of whose members are related directly to former senior Party leaders. Brown reveals the intrigue, scandal, and murder surrounding the internal battle raging between two China's: one founded by Mao on Communist principles, and a modern China in which 'to get rich is glorious.' At the center of it all sits the latest Party Secretary, Xi Jinping—the son of a revolutionary, with links both to big business and to the People's Liberation Army. His rise to power is symbolic of the new dragons leading the world's next superpower. —I.B. Tauris
Julia Lovell, The Telegraph (July 12, 2014)
Isabel Hilton, The Observer (July 5, 2014)
Jonathan Mirsky, Times Higher Education (July 3, 2014)
Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times (June 29, 2014)
