109 Archives | Week In China

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Back Issue

WiC 109 (Jun 3, 2011)

Return of the dambusters

Environment, Talking Point China loves infrastructure; but are mega-projects causing mega-problems?

The idea of a ‘benign dictator’ can be seductive one. If you have the right person at the top, it is claimed, you avoid the messiness of collective ...

A business built on refunds

China Consumer Chen Nian’s about to IPO his second online retailing success, Vancl…

Zappos, the American online shoe retailer, grabbed headlines in 2009 when it was sold to Amazon.com for $847 million in cash and stock. Jeff Bezos, ...

No folly to buy Folli

M&A China’s acquisitive Fosun has just bought into another Western brand

Warren Buffett put his investment strategy this way in his 1996 letter to shareholders: “We continue to make more money when snoring than when ...

Paying with his life

Banking & Finance Former billionaire commits suicide when he can’t repay debts

By any measure it is a grim way to go, burned to a crisp in the front seat of your own Audi. That was the unfortunate fate of Jin Libin, a (former) ...

Waning Wenzhou?

Economy Manufacturing hub shows signs of decline

"Accumulating gold is not as good as storing up grain,” warns the Chinese proverb. The lesson is that it is better to work diligently than to take ...

Death of a sales team

Internet & Tech Shanda’s video-sharing site fires staff and loses market share

As if being made redundant wasn’t wounding enough, workers at Ku6, a video-sharing site, are complaining that they were then beaten up before they ...

Time for a change of Korea?

China and the World The message from Kim’s visit? Copy our economic reforms says Beijing

"Where can I find oil for a salad?” was the rather mundane enquiry made of supermarket staff in Yangzhou last Monday, according to the Daily ...

Internet & Tech How Microsoft could make $6.3 billion more in China

Most foreign CEOs know thatnegative talk about the Chinese market can backfire with the local audience. Best instead to give things a positive spin, ...

Who’s Hu Zhang Gang

Zhang Gang’s independent spirit emerged at an early age. Aged 9, he stole some money from his parents for a lollipop. After his mother gave him a ...

Pakistan is “our Israel”

China and the World Why Islamabad has been cosying up to Beijing in recent weeks

"Any attack on Pakistan will be construed as an attack on China,” China’s foreign minister bluntly warned last month. This was shortly after ...

The day China got bombed

Society Fuzhou suicide bomber and a fired steelworker trigger debate on elections

These are volatile times in China. Last Friday, there was a ‘terrorist’ attack in Jiangxi province. Qian Mingqi, 52, set off three bombs at ...

A must-read history on China

Society Why the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen in China

When Edward Gibbon wrote The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 – it ...

Planet China In planning to register a trademark, the name ‘bin Laden’ probably…

In planning to register a trademark, the name ‘bin Laden’ probably wouldn’t be near the top of most lists. Not so, it seems, for a number of ...

Bags packed for Hong Kong

Cartoons Bags packed for Hong Kong

Executives at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange must have made a good case to Samsonite. The suitcase-maker will list in Hong Kong on June 16, and this week ...

A Chinese Puccini

And Finally Street market vendor rewrites ‘Nessun Dorma’

As his life drew to an end, Giacomo Puccini penned one of opera’s most celebrated arias, Nessun Dorma. Immortalised in turn by Luciano ...