161 « Week In China

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WiC 161 (Aug 24, 2012)

Jiang: what American dream?

Media, Talking Point Why Focus Media’s boss no longer wants to be listed in…

A little over 30 years ago, a new term began to be murmured around company boardrooms – the leveraged buyout, or LBO. It came courtesy of investor ...

The new landlord

Property Will investors warm to SOHO China’s strategy?

These are busy days for Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, the celebrity couple behind the property developer SOHO China. Not only is the duo in a courtroom ...

A strange business

Economy Why all the shops closed in Liaoning province

The ‘law of unintended consequences’ was a term coined by Robert K Merton in 1936. And were he alive today, Merton would have found a decent ...

Leading the charge

M&A Wanxiang to buy a majority stake in US car battery maker

Paul Ryan, running mate of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, recently took Barack Obama to task for being soft on China, claiming that the US president ...

Murder most foul

Economy Suspended death sentence for wife of ousted Party boss Bo Xilai

Like a carefully crafted TV show, Gu Kailai’s trial was supposed to have a little something for everyone.

For those who wanted to see justice ...

Energy & Resources Why Suntech’s founder has stepped down as CEO

Shi Zhengrong once said he was less interested in profits than “solving the problems of mankind”. Right now, he’s probably more interested in ...

China and the World Tensions with Japan escalate over disputed isles

Wars can start over the smallest of provocations. The severed ear of Robert Jenkins prompted nine years of Anglo-Spanish hostilities in the mid-18th ...

Who needs profits?

China Consumer Retail giants promise pricing plunge; shoppers wait for action

"We could become profitable tomorrow, but there is no value in that itself. We have to invest now.” Such was the verdict of Liu Qiangdong, founder ...

Grapes of wrath

China Consumer Yantai-based winery’s stock plunges over scare

Whether it is theoretically possible to drink 100 bottles of wine a day, few would consider it a good idea to find out. Yet when China’s biggest ...

Hobbling Hollywood

Entertainment More evidence of China strategy to boost local film takings

Four years ago The Dark Knight took the world’s box office by storm, pulling in over $1 billion in ticket sales. But Chinese moviegoers ...

Next stop, world peace

Red Star Yu Wenxia

Yu Wenxia, 23, was a music student at the Harbin Normal University College of Music before she won Miss Tourism in Harbin, a local beauty pageant. She ...

The fall of Liu

Sport Hurdler fails again, China comes second in medal table

"Strange”, “baffling” and “surreal” was the take on the opening ceremony for the London Olympics at the end of last month – and that came ...

Planet China Living by a busy road has at least one severe drawback:…

Living by a busy road has at least one severe drawback: the noise. But according to the Shandong Daily, a resident of Wendeng City seems to have found ...

Money for nothing

Cartoons Money for nothing

Sometimes it’s hard to separate China truth from fiction. Last year we capitalised on this conundrum with an April Fools’ Day issue (see WiC101) in ...

Gone for a Song

And Finally Plans afoot to rebuild ancient capital

In China, it seems, everything can be quantified. That became evident once again this month when a senior government official published the latest ...