43 Archives | Week In China

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Back Issue

WiC 43 (Dec 18, 2009)

The year in review

Economy, Talking Point A look back at the key Talking Points of 2009

While economies across much of the world were gasping for air this year, China took a deep swig on the stimulus bottle and was soon back into the swing ...

Banking & Finance Visa fears rise of credit card rival?

In Chinese culture four is the most unlucky of numbers. Its pronunciation in Mandarin, si, is almost identical to the word for death. Very few locals ...

Second hand car companies

Auto Industry A buyer from Beijing picks up assets from Saab

Up until the very last minute, few believed that General Motors would sell off Saab in pieces. Many thought that a white knight would appear and save ...

Fighting underground

Telecoms Subway operators and telcos go to battle

Like a dropped phone call, the once-animated dispute between Guangzhou Metro and the city’s mobile carriers has suddenly gone silent. The dispute ...

Economy Land reform gathers pace?

Veterans of the Long March would roll over in their graves were they to click onto “tudinet.com” today. Tudinet is a new website operating an ...

On a (legal) crusade

Chinese Character China may have found its very own Ralph Nader

"I’ve always believed the three ultimate means to protect individual rights and eliminate injustice in a modern civilisation are litigation, ...

Red Star Zhou Libo

With his hair parted on the left side and his serious facial expression, Zhou Libo looks more like your typical bad guy from an old Chinese movie, says ...

Blades of glory

Sport Comeback-on-ice

There will be many who think the ‘death spiral’ was perfected by Dick Fuld and his management team at Lehman Brothers. But a Chinese ice skating ...

Billionaire ahoy

Society Luxury yachts on the horizon for the Chinese elite

When people think about the American Jim Clark, few recall that he was the co-founder of Netscape Communications in 1994. More remember him as the ...

Using his noodle

Entertainment Zhang Yimou wants to make China laugh this Christmas

For much of the past quarter century, the Chinese director Zhang Yimou made films that showcased the country’s painful struggle against poverty and ...

Who’s Hu Arms-to-automatives

Born in Jiangsu in 1964, Xu Liuping first studied chemical technology before being accepted at the Beijing Institute of Technology where he became an ...

Toying with mothers

China Consumer One-child policy promotes one-stop shop for first-time parents

Shopping for Christmas gifts for new mothers and children can be a daunting experience anywhere. Double it in China, where equivalents to Toys R Us ...

Out of Chafrica

China and the World China will woo Africa in coming decade

With the body of a musk deer, the tail of an ox, the forehead of a wolf, the hoofs of a horse and a fleshy horn like a unicorn, the Qilin occupies a ...

Society Are class tensions rising?

It costs $585 in London, $589 in Paris and just $574 in New York. But the very same Christian Dior ladies’ wallet will set you back $805 in ...

Planet China Burning down your house is an unusual way to make a…

Burning down your house is an unusual way to make a point. For a woman from Shandong province it was evidently a last resort as she struggled with her ...

Put that in your pipe…

Cartoons Put that in your pipe…

Christmas has come early for China this year, according to state media. That’s because of a rather unusual ‘gift’: a new gas pipeline, which ...

And Finally Drink driving rules prompt vinegar sales

Over the many millennia of its recorded history, the Chinese viewed seven groceries as “essential” items. Every household required firewood, rice, ...