103 « Week In China

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WiC 103 (Apr 15, 2011)

Copper to come a cropper?

Energy & Resources, Talking Point Debate on true extent of Chinese copper demand could hit the…

Domiciled in Canada, listed in Toronto and Sydney, with an operating focus in Zambia and Saudi Arabia, and soon to be China-owned? Senior executives ...

Li’s hot property

Banking & Finance Debut Hong Kong IPO in renminbi could be first of many

Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, is said to set his watch eight minutes early, because “eight” sounds like “prosperity” in ...

Bun fight over tea

China Consumer Why trouble may be brewing for herbal tea firm

Fancy a guess at China’s best-selling canned beverage? Coke head-to-head with Pepsi, perhaps? In fact, leading the pack is Wanglaoji, a herbal tea. ...

The NDRC’s inflating powers

Economy Economic planning agency now looks to be setting prices

If officials from any other country had told consumer products giant Unilever that it couldn’t raise prices for its goods, would the advice have been ...

Aviation Chinese airlines protest new EU green regulation

Beware the eco-babble of the eco-loonies is one warning from Michael O’Leary, the caustic chief executive of Ryanair, on the European Union’s ...

Kung-fu fighting

Others Fast-food chain rocked by family falling out

Early in January Macau casino king Stanley Ho grabbed headlines after he sought to sue members of his family for seizing control of his flagship Macau ...

Economy Minimum wage controversy

Workers of the world, unite! That was the plan as far as the Communist Manifesto was concerned. But last year China’s only nationally-sanctioned ...

Costly coke addiction

Energy & Resources First iron ore, now Chinese steelmakers worry about rising coking coal…

State-owned metals giant Chinalco may be Rio Tinto’s largest shareholder, but that hasn’t helped China get iron ore prices down. Frustrated NDRC ...

Who’s Hu Wang Zhongjun

Born to a military family in Beijing in 1960, Wang Zhongjun followed the family tradition by enlisting at the age of 16. After leaving the army, he ...

Chinese Character Wang Gongquan likes risks: both in his investments and personal life

Local officials first described the fate of villager Qian Yunhui as a “traffic accident” after he was crushed to death under a truck carrying rocks ...

Society List of ‘old friends’ published

In a less politically correct time, official Chinese rhetoric simply dismissed foreigners as savages or barbarians. At the centre of earthly ...

The talk of China

Entertainment Why a controversial TV chat show may prove too popular for…

In recent years, the internet has bestowed global celebrity on a long list of unlikely candidates, like Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor who ...

Society Stabbings arouse debate over China’s dysfunctional society

There is much about the pace and scale of change in China to admire. But WiC has written too about the social consequences of three decades of ...

History Lessons Sun versus Pang

During the Warring States period (475 – 221 BC), seven states spent decades feuding over turf. Sun Bin was a famous military strategist at the time ...

Planet China Glow-in-the-dark watches and toys have their uses, but China has unwittingly…

Glow-in-the-dark watches and toys have their uses, but China has unwittingly pioneered a fluorescent product that few are likely to want. The Shanghai ...

Going for a song (dynasty)?

Cartoons Going for a song (dynasty)?

The Economist magazine called it the “greatest collection of Chinese treasures still in private hands in the West”, so expectations were high that ...

And Finally Local government’s new use for 3G

When mobile phones first went on sale in 1983, they were intended to help business executives be more efficient. But the engineers who pioneered them ...