47 « Week In China

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Back Issue

WiC 47 (Jan 29, 2010)

Internet & Tech, Talking Point How China’s internet is becoming an intranet

It is 2011, and even email is being curtailed. The good news: a revived post office, which is recruiting 100,000 new workers. Such was the online ...

Banking & Finance, Section The explosive growth of the pre-paid card has many worried

In China, cash gifts are given in red envelopes at weddings, birthdays and during Chinese New Year. These packages, known in Mandarin as hongbao, are ...

No censor humour

China and the World Sino-American relations deteriorate over Google

Deng Xiaoping was just five foot tall; but his influence in modern China has been that of a giant. Yet Deng wanted China to draw as little attention to ...

Telecoms Taobao dominates online shopping; now its sights are on mobiles

Imagine being in a position to control as much as 80% of China’s online shopping. That is the favoured position in which Taobao.com, China’s ...

Sport A big boost for Chinese tennis

Perhaps the only thing standing between Zheng Jie and global stardom, is that no Westerner can say her name properly. Television commentators have long ...

Big screen lure

Entertainment Fad or future? China goes crazy for IMAX cinemas

With less than 100 days to the start of the Shanghai Expo, the event’s promotional team is upping a gear. This week’s titbit for the local media? A ...

Fast Food A winter favourite

What is it? Hotpot boils thin slices of meat, seafood and vegetables in a communal pot of seasoned broth. Morsels are then plucked out as they cook. ...

Society Divorced six times, for the cash

If you’re looking for what marriage can do to a man, how about this: a husband from Fujian province recently begged local police to lock him up. ...

Election dispute

Society One-man-one-vote with Chinese characteristics...

In a country that can lay claim to counterfeiting just about anything, how does 2.9 billion fake votes strike you? The poll in question is not a ...

Property ‘Use-it-or-lose-it’, property developers told

Each new month seems to be bringing a new record in Chinese property prices at the moment, even as the authorities continue to warn against overheating ...

Chinese Character A former soldier and restaurateur is now buying foreign oil and…

In life, a person should always be looking to progress,” says Sun Guangxin, the chairman of Xinjiang Guanghui Enterprise Group. Sun certainly ...

China Consumer Local brands take on multinationals... and win

Although there were no fireworks or dragon dancing, Chinese sportswear label Li Ning was in celebratory mode on opening its first retail store in the ...

Who’s Hu Jiangsu's meat billionaire

Born in 1967 to a poor farming family, Zhu Yicai grew up in Tongcheng in Anhui province. Two of his siblings starved to death during the famine induced ...

Economy Pfizer rejuvenates Houjie

It’s like a Boeing airplane scattering money above the town,” was how one hospitality industry worker described it. The 21CN Business Herald called ...

The proletariat revolts

Economy Riots at a factory in Jiangsu province over pay and work…

As you swipe your finger across your iPhone, you probably give little thought to the factory in Suzhou where its touchscreen is made. But that ...

Branding summit

Planet China The Rocky Mountains weren’t named after Sylvester Stallone’s films, but there’s…

The Rocky Mountains weren’t named after Sylvester Stallone’s films, but there’s at least one peak in China that has been named after a movie ...

Beijing’s Socratic dialogue

Cartoons Beijing’s Socratic dialogue

‘Joining the queue at the Beijing ATM’ is how the Financial Times is describing it. The rude health of China’s public finances has come into ...

And Finally Controversy erupts over a floating mansion near Shenzhen

The Chinese government wants to sink the property market. Literally. A luxury villa floating off the coast of Shenzhen (not far from Hong Kong) that ...