ChinaFile Recommends
09.06.12State Monopolies Continue to Dominate China’s Top 500
Economic Observer
A new list that ranks China's top 500 companies according to operating revenue put together by the China Enterprise Confederation & China Enterprise Directors Association (CEC/CEDA) reveals that most of China's biggest companies...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.04.12Guangzhou Moves to Limit New Cars
New York Times
The crackdown by China’s third-largest city is the most restrictive in a series of moves by big Chinese cities that are putting quality-of-life issues ahead of short-term economic growth, something the central government has struggled to do on a...
Caixin Media
08.31.12In Guangdong, Tea Oil Greases Official Palms
In the financial documents for a Guangdong province grower and processor of tea seed oil is a list of key shareholders who also happen to be the relatives of local government officials.Off the record, Guangdong Xindadi Biotechnology Co. Ltd. and its...
Sinica Podcast
08.31.12
The Huawei Enigma
from Sinica Podcast
Is there any other company that better captures the dual way China is perceived internationally than Huawei? As one of China’s few market-based telecommunications equipment providers, the company is in many ways a symbol of China’s high-tech, global...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.28.12Inside Huawei, Chinese Tech Giant Rattling Nerves in D.C.
CNET
Huawei might make better, cheaper telecom gear than rivals. And it's come up with a new sleek handset to compete against the iPhone. But years of pressure from the federal government have largely kept Huawei on the fringes in the United States.
Reports
08.27.12
The China Toll
Economic Policy Institute
Since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, the extraordinary growth of trade between China and the United States has had a dramatic effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy, though in neither case has this effect been...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.27.12China Seeks to Increase Mutual Investments with India
Hindu
China has called for a move to boost mutual investments with India as a measure to strengthen trade ties and reshape what officials have acknowledged is an increasingly unbalanced and strained business relationship, as trade talks between both...
Caixin Media
08.25.12Revamping the Landscape of Forex Flow
Capital flows out of China may be accelerating, a phenomenon commonly associated with waning confidence in a nation’s economy. But the foreign exchange regulator says the change is a step in the right direction.In the first six months of the year,...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.24.12China Confronts Mounting Piles of Unsold Goods
New York Times
After three decades of torrid growth, China is encountering an unfamiliar problem with its newly struggling economy: a huge buildup of unsold goods that is cluttering shop floors, clogging car dealerships and filling factory warehouses.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.22.12Motorola Employees Protest against Layoffs
Hundreds of employees that could be laid off by Motorola China have protested in Beijing and Nanjing, calling for transparent procedures and fair treatment after the cell phone maker announced over 1,000 layoffs in the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
08.22.12Auditor Says Foxconn Is Improving Work Conditions
Marketplace
If you own an Apple product, you might be interested in knowing how Apple's supply chain is doing. Six months ago, the Fair Labor Association, a labor group hired by Apple found a number of problems with iPhone and iPad maker Foxconn. Those...
Caixin Media
08.16.12Rise Of The Online Titans
China’s titans of online retailing have unsheathed their marketing swords for a war in cyberspace that industry watchers say will decide the future of everyday shopping habits for nearly a billion consumers.Dozens of retail companies have staked out...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.14.12China’s Commercial Disputes Increasingly Arbitrated in Court
Financial Times
A big rise in commercial litigation might seem perfectly normal in an economy that is experiencing a downturn, but in China it reflects a profound shift: the rule of law has made deep inroads in governing business transactions, from routine deals to...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.14.12How Dangerous Liaisons Led to Massive Corruption
A graft investigation into former railways minister Liu Zhijun that started in February 2011 has concluded with the ministry issuing a document on August 3 that lists six disciplinary violations Liu committed. The internal ministry notice sheds...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.14.12Scrutiny for Casino Mogul’s Frontman in China
New York Times
When Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, needed something done in China, he often turned to his company’s “chief Beijing representative,” a mysterious businessman named Yang Saixin. Mr. Yang arranged meetings for Mr. Adelson with senior Chinese...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.10.12Las Vegas Sands Probed on China Deals
Wall Street Journal
The probes jump off from Sands' disclosure last year that the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating it for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, following allegations made in a...
Caixin Media
08.09.12
Subsidized Cartoons, Comics Tickling Too Few
Breaking into the animated film industry usually requires a basic plan for blending colorful images and clever storytelling in ways that entertain the public—and make money.Since 2006, however, animated film start-ups in China have done quite well...
Reports
08.08.12
Samsung Supplier Factory Exploiting Child Labor: Investigative Report
Peony Lui
China Labor Watch
Members of China Labor Watch conducted an investigation of HEG Electronics (Huizhou) Co., Ltd, which showed that the practice of hiring child labor is prevalent this factory. Investigators worked in the factory for two months, and identified seven...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.07.12Samsung China Assembler Employs Child Workers, Group Says
Bloomberg
A Chinese company that assembles devices for Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) hired children at its production facilities and forced employees to work excessive hours, violating labor laws, China Labor Watch said in a report.
Caixin Media
08.07.12Shenyang Businesses Closed By Inspection Panic
Most shop owners in a city of roughly 8 million people have pulled down their shutters to avoid what they fear will be stringent enforcement of a city ordinance tied to the hosting of the 2013 National Games.Small business owners in Shenyang,...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.04.12Huawei: The Company That Spooked the World
Economist
BANBURY, a little English town best known for a walk-on part in a nursery rhyme and as the eponymous origin of a fruitcake, is an unlikely fulcrum for the balance of power in the world of telecoms. But the “Cyber Security Evaluation Centre” set up...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.03.12Ideas Will Determine China's Future
Wall Street Journal
Even as China's economy gallops ahead, its society is facing increasingly sharp contradictions. Income and regional inequalities are expanding, official corruption is rampant, access to medical care and education are uneven, and environmental...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.03.12The Perils of Private Enterprise: There Was Blood
Economist
A visitor to Jingbian county in northern Shaanxi province finds at its heart a thriving oil town in the grip of a state-owned company, Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum. Yanchang’s building, 12 storeys high, towers over the low-slung town. The company is...
ChinaFile Recommends
08.01.12Chinese Property: The Most Important Sector in the World?
Economist
CHINA'S property market was once described as the "most important sector in the known universe" by Jonathan Anderson, formerly of UBS, a Swiss bank. It certainly felt that way on a recent visit to Sanya, the resort city in Hainan,...
Caixin Media
07.31.12
Shedding Light on the Solar Crisis
After Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., a Wuxi-headquartered photovoltaic cell producer, went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005, China’s solar industry grew at an astonishing speed. More than 200 photovoltaic product manufacturers are...
Caixin Media
07.27.12LDK Solar Owes Twenty Suppliers 600 Million Yuan
Debt-ridden Jiangxi LDK Solar has defaulted on at least 600 million yuan in unpaid bills for raw materials and equipment, twenty suppliers say.“Starting from late last year, LDK Solar was delinquent on 15 million yuan to our company,” Liu Qingfeng,...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.26.12Chinese Maker of Olympic Uniforms Baffled by Backlash
Los Angeles Times
If Horatio Alger had spoken Mandarin he would have loved the rags-to-riches tale of garment maker Li Guilian. Chinese President Hu Jintao and fellow Politburo members are loyal customers of her firm,...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.23.12Fashion Magazines Laden With Ads Thriving
New York Times
While fashion labels are spending more on magazine advertising in the United States, they’re pouring even more money into magazines across mainland China.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.19.12Detention for New Oriental
Wall Street Journal
The education of U.S. investors on the risks of overseas-listed Chinese stocks continues. Shares in New Oriental Education & Technology Group, one of China's largest private education providers, plunged 57% in the last two days, wiping...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.19.12Yum Profit Trails Estimates as Costs Increase in China
Bloomberg
Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM), owner of the KFC and Taco Bell restaurant brands, said second-quarter profit rose 4.7 percent, falling short of analysts’ projections, as costs increased at locations in China.
Caixin Media
07.19.12
Vineyards Pop Corks on Chinese Wine Investors
Wine-tasting party conversations among investors in China are increasingly sounding like sour grapes.Some well-heeled wine investors have been anxiously debating whether a price bubble for investment-grade wine is getting ready to burst. Others...
Caixin Media
07.18.12Financial Reform Has Only Begun
The Chinese economy’s rapid growth over the past thirty years has fundamentally changed global economic structures. But our achievements have come at a price: We have run up against hard limits in many areas, including factor investment costs and...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.17.12Q&A: Searching for Perfect Pitch
New Yorker
What sells in China? The answer may be poised for a change. Advertising on the mainland has traditionally been about volume: loud, busy, and overwhelming. (One study found that the average Shanghai resident is exposed to three times as many...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.16.12Wage Rises in China May Ease Slowdown
Wall Street Journal
Wages are still climbing rapidly in China and many companies are having trouble filling jobs despite the sharp economic slowdown here—evidence of a structural shortage in the labor market that may help China adjust to slower growth without political...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.11.12Sheldon Adelson and Macau
New Yorker
Nearly forty years ago, S. J. Perelman described a fictional Hong Kong hotel he called the “Golden Bamboozle,” a reference not only to a bed chamber that cost a “prince’s ransom,” but to a city that was a magnet for bon vivants and grifters and risk...
Caixin Media
07.11.12
Economic Ties that Bind
Labor leader Wayne Swan has his finger on the pulse of the Australian economy as the nation’s deputy prime minister and treasurer, which means he’s well-equipped to explain factors defining the increasingly robust relationship between China and...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.05.12U.S. Files Trade Complaint Against China on Cars
New York Times
The United States filed a trade complaint against China on Thursday for new duties it imposed on American-made cars and trucks. The move came as President Obama kicked off a campaign bus tour through the manufacturing heartland of Pennsylvania and...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.03.12On Chinese Liquor Brand Is the Life of the Party
New York Times
Government and Communist Party officials in China have been pounding down so much Moutai grain alcohol — the good stuff, the expensive stuff, not the everyday rotgut — that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao recently proposed slashing the state budget for it...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.02.12China Debates Apple’s $60m ‘iPad’ Payout
WSJ: China Real Time Report
The China-based unit of Hong Kong computer monitor maker Proview has found itself $60 million richer after concluding settlement negotiations in its legal dispute with Apple over the use of the iPad name in China. Proview isn’t faring nearly so well...
Caixin Media
07.02.12Deal Puts Saab in Green Technology Driver’s Seat
The dark clouds over bankrupt Swedish car maker Saab have finally cleared.Saab Automobile AB’s liquidator signed an agreement in mid-June with National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB (NEVS) to sell the company’s main assets to the Sino-Japanese...
Media
06.30.12
Bloomberg Unearths Xi Jinping’s Family Fortune
A recent Bloomberg report detailing the millionaire assets of the extended family of Xi Jinping, China’s presumptive next leader, has drawn praise from the community of China media observers for its thorough investigative work and fact-...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.30.12Xi Jinping Millionaire Relations Reveal Fortunes Of Elite
Bloomberg
Xi Jinping, the man in line to be China’s next president, warned officials on a 2004 anti-graft conference call: “Rein in your spouses, children, relatives, friends and staff, and vow not to use power for personal gain.” As Xi climbed the Communist...
Caixin Media
06.29.12
Barclay’s Diamond Offers an Optimistic Vision
A calm, confident Robert Diamond discussed financial restructuring in Europe and economic options for the Chinese government during a June 14 interview—thirteen days before the British bank where he serves as CEO, Barclays Group, was fined for...
Caixin Media
06.29.12
Shale Gas Race
The shale gas revolution in the United States has led to a debate in China over shale gas development. But can the United States really achieve energy self-sufficiency? And if it can, what are the implications for China?Ever since the Nixon era,...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.28.12Chinese Company in Kickback Scandal in the Philippines
Washington Post
After a tense showdown over a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, the closest U.S. ally in Southeast Asia and a rising China now face a new source of potential friction over the alleged corrupt practices of a well-connected Chinese corporation.
ChinaFile Recommends
06.27.12NYTimes To Launch Chinese-Language News Site
New York Times
The New York Times is introducing a Chinese-language Web site, part of a continuing effort to expand its reach to international readers. The site, which is called cn.nytimes.com and will go live Thursday morning, is intended to draw readers from the...
Caixin Media
06.27.12
Cash for China’s Homegrown Smartphone
Xiaomi Mobile Internet Co. has raised US$216 million, its CEO says, raising the total value of the upstart, homegrown Chinese smartphone maker to US$4 billion.If Lei Jun’s claim is accurate, his two-year-old company’s value is close to the market...
Reports
06.27.12
Beyond Foxconn: Deplorable Working Conditions Characterize Apple’s Entire Supply Chain
China Labor Watch
On June 14th, 2012 a Foxconn worker jumped to his death from his apartment building in Chengdu, marking the 18th reported worker suicide at Foxconn factories in China in just over two years. Many additional suicides may have gone unreported. But...
Reports
06.25.12
U.S.-China Public Perceptions Opinion Survey 2012
Committee of 100
The re-establishment of U.S.-China relations in 1971 marked a strategic step that ended China’s isolation and transformed the global balance of power. Since that historic milestone, the United States as an established superpower and China as an...
Caixin Media
06.20.12
China’s Food Fright
There’s no denying that the gastronomic horizons of Chinese cuisines sometimes verge on the infinite. But on factors of food quality, there’s little subtlety or nuance for safety standards.In the past five years, the number of public food and drug...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.16.12Jack Ma Is the Loneliest Billionaire in China
Businessweek
It’s been a rough 18 months for Chinese Internet tycoon Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the Alibaba Group, a sprawling conglomerate of Web companies. Early in 2011 a fraud scandal hit his business-to-business e-commerce site, Alibaba.com. At...
Caixin Media
06.14.12Private Economy’s Original Sin
Whether measured in terms of gross domestic product, tax contributions or job creation, statistics prove that the private economy plays a crucial role in China.In some well-developed parts of the country the private sector, when factoring in...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.13.12The Unwritten Rules in Chinese Technology
New Yorker
What do we mean when we say a Chinese company has “close ties to the government”? Or is “connected to the military”? And does this matter? It is a problem that writers on China have encountered for years, and it can be difficult get firm evidence...
Caixin Media
06.08.12
Road Show Media Bandits Squeeze IPO Hopefuls
Buying media silence is a common first step toward an initial public offering in China that siphons billions of yuan every year from companies seeking investors in Shanghai and Shenzhen.The phenomenon has been documented by the China Securities...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.05.12What Happened on the Shanghai Stock Exchange?
New Yorker
China experienced a bizarre numerological happening this week. The Shanghai Composite Index started yesterday morning at 2346.98, which, when read from right to left, shares an uncanny similarity to yesterday’s highly sensitive anniversary: twenty-...
Reports
06.01.12
Crossing the River by Feeling for Stones: A New Approach to Exporting Creative Content to China?
Nesta
We have all heard the statistics. About how China is forecast to overtake the U.S. to be the largest economy in the world by 2027. How China already has 277 million mobile web users, of which 45 percent use their handsets to access music and 21 per...
Media
05.31.12
Zuckerberg’s CCTV Cameo
Chinese social media outlets lit up after sharp-eyed viewers caught Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg making a cameo appearance on Chinese Police, a documentary series produced by China Central Television (CCTV). Just a few second long, the footage shows...
ChinaFile Recommends
05.31.12Top Banker Held in Gambling Probe
South China Morning Post
A senior executive at one of the mainland's Big Four state-controlled banks has been detained amid a widening investigation into allegations of illegal gambling and the misappropriation of clients' money.
Caixin Media
05.31.12Heading Deep for the First Time
On May 9, China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s (CNOOC) first deepwater drilling platform began operating in the South China Sea. The world-class vessel is stationed in the Liwan 6-1-1 field, about 320 kilometers southeast of Hong Kong, in waters...
Caixin Media
05.28.12
Rail Builders Shift Interest to Overseas Mines
After a three-year wait, China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. (CRCC) recently won permission to launch a major copper mining project in Ecuador.The production agreement signed April 25 by Ecuador’s government and Corriente Resources, a Canadian...