481 Archives | Week In China

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WiC 481 (Jan 31, 2020)

Boris breaks ranks on 5G

China and the World, Internet & Tech, Talking Point How Huawei has strained the UK’s ‘special relationship’ with the US…

Boris Johnson, who read Classics at university, seems more comfortable looking back to the ancient world than peering ahead to the technologies of the ...

Healthcare China battles to contain the coronavirus outbreak

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated last week that there have been at least 15 million flu cases in the United States since ...

Pushing the (red) envelope

Internet & Tech Kuaishou takes centre stage as sponsor of this year’s CCTV Gala…

Because of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, the mood over Chinese New Year has been sombre. The week-long holiday, traditionally a time when people ...

A decade dissected

Economy Ranking highlights upgrade of China’s economy

The Hurun Research Institute’s inaugural report on China’s 500 most valuable private sector companies gives a snapshot of how China is changing. ...

Hanging by a thread

M&A Shandong Ruyi counts the costs of its overseas acquisition spree

After a 60% spike in LVMH’s market value last year, Forbes magazine has calculated that Bernard Arnault, the founder and boss of the luxury goods ...

Auto Industry Volkswagen’s 2020 China EV sales to beat Tesla’s?

It may have happened right at the start of 2020 but one of the defining moments for the electric vehicle (EV) sector this year will almost certainly be ...

Property Country Garden opens first robot restaurant

One of the exhibits at the World Economic Forum earlier this month was YuMi, a robot that makes a cup of coffee in less than 90 seconds. Thanks to its ...

On neutral ground

Banking & Finance A cloud company lists on Shanghai’s STAR board

For centuries before it adopted the policy of neutrality in global affairs, Switzerland had been Europe’s go-to supplier of mercenary troops, thanks ...

In praise of folly

Education Sycophantic academic paper about mentor’s “nobility” draws fire online

A decade ago Xu Zhongmin was awarded a government grant of Rmb2 million ($288,317) to write a paper on the interplay of economics and ecology in the ...

Entertainment Apple’s mother-daughter ‘short movie’ divides opinion in China

Apple’s first TV spot in China, titled The Old Record, arrived in 2015 right before the Chinese New Year, the busiest gift-giving holiday. ...

Society Private photo shoot rouses anger about Palace privileges

Before having tea with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a state visit in 2017, Donald Trump explored the Forbidden City on foot. The last foreign ...

Kobe, in memoriam

World of Weibo Kobe, in memoriam

The impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump have struggled to hog the news headlines this week, as the international media focused ...

Planet China Much of the action in Peter Hessler’s classic Chinese memoir River…

Much of the action in Peter Hessler’s classic Chinese memoir River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, took place in Fuling, where the American ...

Speyside meets Sichuan

Sino-File “The Chinese uber-foodies of my acquaintance have become increasingly besotted with…

Fuchsia Dunlop, a British food writer and chef who specialises in Sichuan cuisine, wrote in the Financial Times last weekend that “whisky turns out ...

Raising his glass at the Oscars

Cartoons Raising his glass at the Oscars

A Chinese business tycoon buying and running an Ohio factory (and periodically discussing Buddhism) may not sound like the sort of material likely to ...

Not a pleasant business

And Finally How a town in Shandong churns out most of Japan’s coffins

China is famous for towns that decided to focus on manufacturing a single product as the economy opened up in the 1990s. There are cities that make ...