Media
10.07.13
Just How Free Is Shanghai’s New Free Trade Zone?
This article is adapted, with updates, from the September 20 article “China’s New Free Trade Zone: Silver Bullet or Stopgap Measure?“Two weeks after taking office in March 2013, China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced that Shanghai, the country’s...
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10.04.13Warner Bro.’s: New Financier to Pursue China Films
Hollywood Reporter
The fledgling financing arrangement between Warner Bros. and RatPac Entertainment, a partnership between filmmaker Brett Ratner and Australian media chief James Packer will aim to produce movies in China, local...
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10.04.13Bringing Home the Bacon: Chinese Savor Smithfield Deal
USA Today
China's swallowing up of Smithfield, a well-known U.S. povider of processed meats, illustrates two things about the country: its swelling economic power and growing hunger for meat-based diets. And the deal may foretell of many...
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10.04.13No, Facebook Can’t Conquer China With Free Trade
Wired
Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has now been legalized inside a forthcoming free-trade zone within Shanghai, but the beachhead will likely remain just that, as it’s unlikely Facebook will be able to penetrate other regions or...
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10.04.13Will Wanda Buy Its Way Into Hollywood?
Variety
Chinese companies have an unfortunate habit of announcing deals before they are signed, or even agreed on, but Wang’s past dealings and current success give him the credibility that some other wannabe film moguls do not have.
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10.04.13China’s Wanda Unveils $8.2 Billion Movie Fund
Hollywood Reporter
Wanda’s huge investment plan is an attempt to turn China’s movie industry into the world’s biggest within 5 years, and includes the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis which contains a 10,000-square-meter film studio, 19 smaller facilities...
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10.01.13Wison Engineering Services Shares Details of a Corruption Investigation
New York Times
Wison’s disclosure is the latest public signs of a spreading corruption inquiry into the China National Petroleum Corporation that has brought down one senior Chinese Communist Party official.
Reports
10.01.13
China’s Absorptive State
Nesta
A great deal of speculation surrounds China’s prospects in science and innovation, as with other aspects of China’s development and heightened visibility on the global stage. The same pitfalls—of hype, generalization, and only partial awareness of...
Caixin Media
09.30.13
Reform of State-Owned Enterprise Requires Adopting Modern Governance
Corruption involving the country’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has hogged the headlines. So far, senior executives at China National Petroleum Corp. have been sacked, former railways officials have been hauled to court and, most recently, news...
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09.27.13China’s Dalian Wanda Group Gives $20 Million to Academy Museum
Hollywood Reporter
The gift, the second-largest commitment received to date, was made as part of the Academy Museum’s $300 million campaign. The Academy will name the museum’s film history gallery The Wanda Gallery.
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09.26.13China Opens World’s Highest Airport
Associated Press
China has begun flight operations at the world’s highest civilian airport in a bid to boost tourism and tighten political control over the country’s restive west.
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09.26.13Wooing, And Also Resenting, Chinese Tourists
New York Times
They gawk, they shove, they eschew local cuisine, and last year, 83 million mainland Chinese spent $102 billion abroad making them the world’s biggest tourism spenders, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
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09.26.13China’s Tencent Expands Search Engine Presence With Sogou Deal
Marketplace
Tencent is spending $448 million to buy a 36.5 percent stake in Sogou, a local search engine owned by Chinese company Sohu.com. As part of the deal, Tencent’s own search engine, Soso, will merge with Sogou, the companies said.
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09.24.13China’s State TV Says Danone Bribed Hospitals to Push Baby Milk
Reuters
China Central Television cited an unidentified former Dumex sales manager as saying the company had paid medical staff at a city hospital in Tianjin to promote its products, allegations that the French food group said it would...
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09.24.13Is China Outgrowing Hollywood Film, TV Industry?
Variety
While Western media loves to trumpet its successes in China, with the strong showing of Hollywood blockbusters, it’s clear that China audiences aren’t just sitting and waiting for the next Hollywood blockbuster.
Conversation
09.24.13
A Shark Called Wanda—Will Hollywood Swallow the Chinese Dream Whole?
Stanley Rosen:Wang Jianlin, who personally doesn’t know much about film, made a splash when he purchased America’s No. 2 movie theater chain AMC at a price many thought far too high for what he was getting. A number of knowledgeable people...
Caixin Media
09.23.13
Measuring the Wealth Gap
Recent findings by China Society of Economic Reform (CSER) have offered a rare glimpse into growing income inequality in the country.The study shows that in 2011 unidentified “gray income,” or the difference between CSER-surveyed income and that of...
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09.19.13Cheap iPhone Not Cheap Enough in China
Wall Street Journal
Apple stands to gain sales in China more than any other market from the cheaper offering thanks to the country’s huge number of low- and middle-income smartphone users. But in China the new iPhone quite frankly won’t be all that cheap.
Infographics
09.19.13
The Mooncake Economy
from Sohu
Across the country, Chinese are observing the annual harvest festival by giving and receiving mooncakes, pastries whose round shape is meant to evoke the full moon of the autumnal equinox. In recent years, bemoaning the debasement of this tradition...
Viewpoint
09.13.13The Urgency of Partnership
While the media keeps its eye on the ongoing Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute, heating up yet again this week after Chinese naval ships and aircraft were spotted circling the area, a parallel, possibly game-changing development in China-Japan...
Conversation
09.13.13
What Can China and Japan Do to Start Anew?
Paula S. Harrell:While the media keeps its eye on the ongoing Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute, heating up yet again this week after Chinese naval ships and aircraft were spotted circling the area, a parallel, possibly game-changing development in...
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09.12.13Workers’ Rights ‘Flouted’ at Apple iPhone Factory in China
Guardian
Staff are allegedly working without adequate protective equipment, at risk from chemicals, noise and lasers, for an average of 69 hours a week. Apple has a self-imposed limit of 60 working hours a week.
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09.11.13China Corruption Probe Reflects Struggle
Deutsche Welle
Analysts argue the investigation, which involves four other top executives of state-owned enterprises, is an attempt by Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang to assert their authority over powerful S.O.E.’s.
Caixin Media
09.10.13
Sober Day Dawns for China’s Baijiu Distillers
Distillers of China’s most popular spirits, baijiu, are sobering up to a business slowdown and tight financing after a decade of outstanding growth.Sales are off and company market values have fallen over the past year, prompting some investors to...
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09.05.13An Inside Look at China’s Censorship Tools
WSJ: China Real Time Report
To get inside the system, professor Gary King and two Ph.D. students started their own fake social network over the past year, which—while it never formally went online—allowed them to reach out to some of China’s many companies offering censorship...
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09.05.13Bribery in G.S.K. China Was Coordinated at Company Level
Reuters
A Chinese police investigation into drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has discovered that alleged bribery of doctors in China was coordinated by the British company and was not the work of individual employees, state...
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09.05.13China’s New Leaders Exert Control Over Oil Company
Associated Press
The crackdown on China’s biggest company — also the second-largest oil company in the world — signals the new administration’s determination to exert control over the powerful sector, said Cheng Li, a Brookings Institution scholar.
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09.05.13Zhou Yongkang, Former Security Tsar Linked to Bo Xilai, Faces Corruption Probe
South China Morning Post
Sources said top leaders made the decision in view of the rising anger inside the party at the scale of the corruption problem and the vast fortune that Zhou's family has amassed. Xi ordered officials in charge of the case to “get to the bottom...
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09.05.13Seeking Edge in Academics, Chinese Spend Summer in U.S.
New York Times
The surge in students traveling to the United States for the summer is the latest iteration in China’s booming multibillion-dollar overseas education business.
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09.05.13Blood and Money
Economist
Of all the investigations and lawsuits affecting financial firms in America, few have wider ramifications than a reported probe by the S.E.C. into whether JPMorgan Chase hired the children of senior Chinese officials in order to help the bank win...
Media
09.04.13
China’s Crackdown on Social Media: Who Is in Danger?
There is a Chinese proverb that says one must kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, which means to punish someone in order to make an example out of them. That is what many believe happened last Sunday when outspoken investor and Internet celebrity...
Caixin Media
09.04.13
China’s Shale Gas Development Goals Just Pipe Dreams
China wants to reap the benefits of a shale gas revolution similar to the one in the United States, but there are many obstacles to this happening, experts say.In the first half of 2013, fifty-six shale gas wells were in the exploratory phase in the...
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09.03.13China Investigating More Top PetroChina Executives Over Corruption
Reuters
A high-level government probe into corruption at China's leading oil and gas firm widened on Tuesday, with three additional senior officials at the state-run giant being investigated over alleged wrongdoing, which is C.C.P. shorthand for graft...
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09.03.13China’s Coal Supply Will Soon Weigh 40 Percent More Than Earth’s Population
Atlantic
The country's excessive past investments in coal have produced a surplus, and today, lowered prices mean mining barons are struggling to pay off loans.
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09.03.13Across China, Skyscrapers Brush the Heavens
New York Times
China is home to 60 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings now under construction. But the skyward aspirations of Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, have inspired incredulity tinged with hostility.
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09.03.13Bo Xilai Trial Transcripts Expose a Privileged World of Wealth
Los Angeles Times
The corruption trial of Bo Xilai is offering the world a peek past the vermilion walls of the Chinese leadership compounds and through the tinted glass of their motorcades into a private sphere of immense entitlement.
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08.29.13‘Trouble in the Middle’: How Foreign Companies SHould Confront Corruption in China
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Navigating the significant and sometimes dangerous differences between Western and Chinese business culture is the focus of “Trouble in the Middle,” the very well-timed new book by Steven Feldman, professor of business ethics at Case Western Reserve...
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08.29.1338 Lenders Linked to Embattled Conglomerate
Xu Ming, the billionaire chairman of Shide Group, a conglomerate based in Dalian has been missing since March 14. Following his disappearance banks have started reviewing loans made to Shide.
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08.29.13China Boss’s Fall Puts Focus on a Business Ally
New York Times
Entrepreneur Xu Ming allegedly funneled millions of dollars in bribes to Bo Xilai and his family, including paying for trips and perhaps even giving the family a $3.5 million villa on the French Riviera, according to people briefed on the indictment...
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08.29.13China’s Voyage of Discovery to Cross the Less Frozen North
Guardian
Global warming means that the Arctic's fabled Northern Sea Route could soon be ice-free in summer, slashing journey times for cargo ships sailing from the Far East to Europe. Which is why the Yong Sheng, a rust-streaked Chinese vessel, is on a...
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08.29.13Kenya’s Kenyatta and China’s Xi Sign $5 Billion Deals
BBC
Kenya has signed deals worth $5 billion with China to build a railway line, an energy project and to improve wildlife protection, officials say. They were signed during Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta's first visit to China since his...
Caixin Media
08.27.13
Inner Mongolia: Where Bankers Sold Bunk
Underlying the trial of a woman authorities say drained bank accounts and kidnapped a banker’s wife are vexing questions about account security and teller supervision at China’s state-run bank branches in Inner Mongolia.Hundreds of millions of yuan...
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08.27.13How to Get Hired in China: The J.P. Morgan Case
New Yorker
The credibility of the Chinese political and economic system has always rested partly on its assertion that it is a well-functioning meritocracy. With the investigation of nepotism between JPMorgan and China’s Railway Ministry,...
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08.27.13Property Mogul Wang Emerges as China’s Richest Person
Bloomberg
Wang Jianlin, owner of China’s biggest commercial land developer, is the nation’s wealthiest person, based on regulatory filings that show his non-real estate businesses are more valuable than previously calculated.
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08.27.13Hiring in China by J.P. Morgan Under Scrutiny
Deal Book
Federal authorities have opened a bribery investigation into whether J.P. Morgan Chase hired the children of powerful Chinese officials to help the bank win lucrative business in the booming nation.
The China Africa Project
08.22.13
Chad Pushes Back Against China’s National Oil Company
The Chadian government shut most or all oil operations run by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) over allegations of an oil spill, poor worker safety, and violations of other environmental regulations. CNPC, not surprisingly, denied the...
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08.21.13Inside China’s Hoop Dreams
Hollywood Reporter
When it comes to cracking the Chinese market, Hollywood could take a page out of the NBA’s playbook. “The love for basketball here is just incredible,” says Kobe Bryant.
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08.21.13Shaolin Temple Denies Abbot Sex Scandal
China Daily
The Henan Shaolin Temple denies Spanish newspaper allegations that abbot Shi Yongxin has a mistress in college in Beijing, a son in Germany and an overseas bank account.
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08.21.13Steven Spielberg Aiming to Make a Film with Zhang Yimou in China
Guardian
Renowned American director seeks collaboration with respected Chinese director on “international film”—their first possible contact since his withdrawal as consultant to Bejing Olympics in protest.
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08.21.13China’s Millionaire Population Grows Less Quickly
Wall Street Journal
With the world’s second-largest economy in the midst of an extended slowdown, growth in the population of Chinese millionaires has fallen to its slowest pace in five years.
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08.21.13From Outsiders to Innkeepers in China’s Sleepy Countryside
New York Times
More hotel rooms are being built in China than anywhere else in the world, and a small number of foreign entrepreneurs in rural China are operating boutique hotels in restored properties that have historic charm.
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08.21.13China: Foreign Tourism Falls, and Smog May Be One Reason
Associated Press
Smog was among factors cited in new report showing China, one of the world’s most popular destinations for international travelers, has experienced a significant decline in the number of tourists this year.
Caixin Media
08.19.13
Infrequent Flying Snarls Civil Aviation Sector
Getting away for a little surf and sand ought to be easy for Beijingers like Mr. Wang, who recently boarded one of the daily, four-hour flights that link the capital and sub-tropical Hainan Island in China’s far south.But airport delays seriously...
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08.14.13M.P.A.A. Chief Christopher Dodd Announces End to China Standoff
Hollywood Reporter
M.P.A.A. chairman and C.E.O. Christopher Dodd announced late on Tuesday that the China Film Group will pay Hollywood studios in full for money owed to them from box office revenue for over a year.
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08.13.13How China Added $1 Trillion to its Economy by Fudging Data
Quartz
China’s economy could be $1 trillion smaller than it says. A professor at Peking University lays out the case in a new working paper that finds some very strange patterns in China’s official statistics. A professor at...
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08.13.13China’s Overdue Payments to Hollywood Could Happen This Week
Variety
Hollywood studios expect to be paid every penny of revenue that has bee earned in China, which is currently held up by a payment dispute. Studio sources suggest that an announcement will be made within a week.
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08.13.13China Likely to Become World’s Largest Oil Importer
BBC
China is likely to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest oil importer as early as next year.The switch comes as the U.S. continues to boost domestic energy supply while China’s energy demand remains robust.
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08.12.13China Box-Office Standoff: Hollywood Could Receive Back Payments Soon
Hollywood Reporter
A solution in a tax dispute that has resulted in delays in box-office payments to Hollywood studios could be coming soon as China Film Group explores interim solutions ahead of a more permanent resolution in coming weeks.
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08.08.13Alibaba Duels With Tencent for Online Dominance in China
Bloomberg
Two of China’s richest men are intensifying their rivalry over the world’s biggest Internet market. Both have made purchases and encroached on each other’s established markets in the battle for dominance of the country’s online spending...
Environment
08.07.13
China’s Abandoned Steel Mills Are a Threat to Public Health
from chinadialogue
China’s steel industry has been in trouble since 2011, with numerous bankruptcies nationwide. The city of Tangshan in Hebei province has been no exception. Though the city is Hebei’s biggest steel maker, with its 70 million tons of annual production...