107 « Week In China

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WiC 107 (May 20, 2011)

Brothers in arms

Talking Point, Telecoms Two major Chinese companies go to war – in Europe’s courts

Sibling rivalry is commonplace in Chinese history. One of the most famous stories takes place during the Three Kingdoms Period. Famous warlord Cao Cao ...

Yahoo’s pay troubles

Internet & Tech Alipay dispute rekindles Yahoo-Alibaba tensions

"In her two and a half years as Yahoo chief executive, Carol Bartz has never visited Hangzhou, the head office of Alibaba”. For the Wall Street ...

Rail & Infrastructure New Beijing to Shanghai train could hurt airlines

Let the Train Take the Strain was an advertising slogan favoured by former railway operator British Rail for its intercity services in the 1980s. ...

Auto Industry How Ma Yongtao came to dominate the US market for roof…

For every Chinese manufacturing start-up that makes it big, there are thousands of unsung firms stranded in mediocrity. It’s hard to say what makes ...

China Consumer How Scotch whisky is trying to displace Moutai

Kweichow Moutai likes to promote itself as the alcohol of choice for government decisionmakers (to be drunk only in responsible quantities at key ...

Coach soon departing

Economy American bag maker decides it’s too expensive to manufacture in China

Our largest geographic opportunity” is how Coach CEO Leo Frankfort referred to the China market last week. But he doesn’t mean in manufacturing, ...

Married to his job no more

Sport Top Chinese tennis star sacks husband and returns to form

Firing people is never a pleasant task, and particularly so if the person in question is your husband. But that’s the sort of ‘tough love’ ...

Internet & Tech Big investment in Weibo service announced by Sina

It has proved famously fiddly to put a price on internet stocks like Twitter or Facebook, both privately held companies. But it turns out too that, ...

Who’s Hu Chen Yizhou

Born in 1969, in Wuchang, Hubei province, Chen Yizhou’s talents took him first to university in Wuhan to study physics, then to the University of ...

Society Cock-ups galore at museum

In the 1975 movie The Return of the Pink Panther, a priceless diamond is stolen from the fictional National Museum of Lugash. A white ...

Environment A river in Fujian illustrates the downside of hydroelectric dams

Dam it all. Well, that seems to be the attitude of planners along the Jiulong River. According to Southern Weekly, the waterway in Fujian offers a ...

A tough sell just got tougher

Aviation After five accidents, Chinese-made aircraft in spotlight for safety record

Earlier this month Merpati Nusantara Airlines crashed a plane in the Indonesian province of West Papua killing 27 passengers. The Economic Observer ...

Society Netizens outraged by privileges of Party leaders

The world’s most frequent flyers enjoy a privileged status. Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific treats its Diamond Plus members like royalty, offering ...

Volley to the left of them

Planet China Britons would be surprised if the country’s Olympic rowers were told…

Britons would be surprised if the country’s Olympic rowers were told to moor up for a month and study the speeches of Winston Churchill. But ...

Saab, the sequel

Cartoons Saab, the sequel

The phrase ‘if at first you don’t succeed’ springs to mind. That follows news that troubled Swedish car brand Saab has found another Chinese ...

A very gutsy lady

And Finally First independent candidate contests election

It will have to go down as one of the more improbable political contests in recent history: 47 year-old retired steel worker Liu Ping took on the full ...