Media in a repressive climate - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, is working on his next book documenting how writers, thinkers, and artists are dealing with the new, more repressive policies in China. He visited citizen journalist Zhang Shihe near Xi'an for an extensive interview. First, he describes Zhang's position for the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson:

“Tiger Temple” (Laohu Miao) is the nom de guerre of Zhang Shihe, one of China’s best-known citizen journalists and makers of short video documentaries, many of them profiling ordinary people he met during extraordinarily long bike rides through China, or human rights activists who have been silenced but whose ideas on freedom and open society he has recorded for future generations. 

Now sixty-five years old, Zhang belongs to a generation of people like leader Xi Jinping who came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Also like Xi, Zhang was a child of the country’s Communist elite. His father had been a Public Security Bureau official in China’s Northwest, which was also the base of Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun. Zhang’s father was a rung lower on the ladder, but still ended his career with the rank of vice-minister. 

And like the Xi family, the Zhangs suffered during the Cultural Revolution. Xi was sent off to a remote village to labor, while Zhang Shihe was a child laborer who helped build a treacherous mountain railway line. But the two reacted differently to their fates. When the turmoil ended in the late 1970s, Xi grasped every opportunity to make up for lost time and launch his political career. Zhang, however, used the freedoms of the new era to explore how China had gone off the rails. 

He did this by interviewing China’s downtrodden, becoming a pioneering “citizen journalist,” a breed of self-taught activists who used the newly emerging digital technologies to record interviews and post them online, thus bypassing—for about a decade starting in the early 2000s—traditional forms of censorship. 

After nearly twenty years in Beijing, Zhang was caught up in the hardening political climate and, in 2011, sent him back to his hometown of Xi’an. This is the most important metropolis in western China and also one of the country’s most famous ancient cities. I went there with the help of a Pulitzer Center travel grant late last year to find out how civil society was faring outside of the narrow confines of Beijing. 

The interview below is part of a bigger project I’ve been pursuing to look at how writers, thinkers, and artists are dealing with the new, more repressive policies in China. As I’ll explore in subsequent posts and an essay in the Review, I found in Xi’an a surprisingly thriving, if small, ecosystem of critical journalists and thinkers. 

Zhang lives in the eastern reaches of Xi’an, in a district called Ba River, which is one of the rivers that bounds the city. In ancient times, it was the place where travelers to the empire’s provinces took leave of friends, and was mentioned by so many great Chinese poets that it became synonymous with melancholy and loss. 

When I visited, I found another sort of tristesse: the drab uniformity of modern Chinese cities. The Ba still flows but the area is now a series of endless housing compounds of fifteen-story buildings divided by razor wire and faceless streets. One subway line serves the area, its stations made of corrugated iron that was being hammered by rain when I arrived.

The whole interview you can read at the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more media experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Peppa Pig in the Chinese New Year - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Marketing veteran Ashley Dudarenok explains how the rebellious Peppa Pig, once denounced by the government as a "gangster" became one of the more popular symbols in the just started Year of the Pig.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more marketing experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

China regulates, not bans, blockchain - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

China banned in September 2017 ICOs (Initial Coins Offerings) after some high-profile cases of fraud but certainly not block all blockchain activities. Lawyer Mark Schaub looks at the China Law Insight at how the government tries to regulate blockchain, one year after the initial ICO ban.

Mark Schaub:

The dilemma for government was clear. On the one hand blockchain is a revolutionary technology that will have a major impact on the global economy. On the other hand, regulation is critically important in order to protect consumers and investors. Over regulate and you may miss the boost to your economy that blockchain will deliver; fail to regulate and there will be major fall out from consumers and investors alike. 

Malta was the first jurisdiction to provide direct guidance as to the requirements for offering an ICO in early 2018. This guidance was followed up by a Virtual Financial Assets Act that was issued at the end of last year. These regulations provided certainty to both issuers and consumers in terms of what was expected in a coin/token offering. Since Malta, a number of other jurisdictions including Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland have released regulations or guidance on crypto-related projects. 

The utility tokens issued in an ICO do not easily fit within established asset classes. For this reason, ICOs were seen as an unregulated area of law. The utility token was not quite a security and more of a digital asset which may have certain rights. Further the utility token may have specific rights; unclearly defined rights or in many cases no rights attached. For this reason, traditional regulations do not neatly apply. In response, and indicative of the conservative approach of many, larger countries, the SEC in the United States of America determined that regardless of whether a token is labeled as a utility or not it could (and likely would) be classified as a security and be required to comply with US securities regulations. 

The importance of blockchain and cryptocurrencies means that governments faced with the dilemma of being hands off, regulating or prohibiting such activities do need to take decisions. As expected the common ground will be regulation. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are too big for governments to ignore or treat in a laissez-faire manner. 

Equally blockchain and crypto-currencies are too big to just prohibit. Governments will not wish to impede the development of these new technologies. 

In our opinion reasonable regulation is healthy for a number of reasons. New regulations will provide legitimacy to the market. At its peak, the entire crypto market was still less than the market capitalization of the world’s most valuable companies and now sits at around USD 120 billion – or how much Facebook lost in market capitalization in one day, after announcing 2018 Q2 earnings. Accordingly, although too big to ignore, cryptocurrencies’ current importance can also be easily over estimated. A major factor holding back the growth of cryptocurrency is due to the lack of large financial institutions that can be actively involved due to the uncertainty in regulations and lack of risk mitigation tools. Regulation should enable cryptocurrencies to move beyond the scams of the past and evolve to help fund real world applications in sectors such as fintech, medical data, supply-chain management, etc. 

The PRC government’s move towards regulating rather than the outright ban of 4 September 2017 should be welcomed by the crypto-community and investors alike. The ideology that cryptocurrencies would be a completely free, decentralized and unregulated sector was never likely to survive interaction with government or investors. Regulations brings oversight, provides certainty and if done correctly should support the development of the sector.

More at the China Law Insight.

Mark Schaub is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more fintech experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

China's economy is strangled by itself, not the trade war - Harry Broadman

Harry Broadman

Trade talks between Beijing and Washington are on its way, but the trade war is not China's real problems, says economic analyst Harry Broadman. China's economy is strangling itself, he writes in the Financial Times.

Harry Broadman:

The noose around the neck of China’s economy has been getting tighter, but hardly as a result of the tariffs imposed by the US. This is a dangerous myth celebrated by Washington and used as a scapegoat by Beijing.
Rather, the squeeze is largely self-induced. It stems from the lack of further reform — in some cases, the reversal of past reforms — in an economy still heavily dominated by the state and whose largest enterprises remain governed by the Communist party. The power to alter China’s economic fortunes lies largely in Beijing’s own hands.
The overarching symptom is a secular fall in China’s real GDP growth. Except for an upward blip in 2010, the growth rate of the Chinese economy has been on a steady decline over the past 10 years.
Such a pattern cannot be the result of China’s trade war with the US, which began in earnest only last year.
And, despite the US imposition of tariffs, China’s trade surplus has expanded, not contracted.
The trend continues. Last week, Beijing announced that its official recording of real GDP growth for 2018 was 6.6 per cent, the lowest rate China has experienced since 1990, the year following the student protests in Tiananmen Square. Beijing downplayed the news, casting it as fully in line with the government’s forecast for 2018 and a sign of the maturity of the Chinese economy.
Those of us who have worked on the ground in China for decades, however, know full well that even if one takes the country’s official economic statistics at face value (which few of us do), the exercise Beijing utilises to set its growth projections lacks rigour and is tinged by political imperatives.
Worse, the process is almost a tautology: official forecasts for a given year are not released before the year’s start.
Thus, only this March will Beijing unveil 2019’s projection — that is, after a quarter of the year has already passed. That’s a sure-fire way of improving the accuracy of any forecast.
As to China being a mature economy, it’s highly doubtful whether the majority of the country’s citizenry would agree with Beijing’s characterisation.
While a number of reforms put in place since 1978 — some of which have been truly ingenious — have lifted millions out of poverty, many Chinese remain poor by any standard. On a purchasingpower-parity basis, China’s per capita GDP is below the global average. It is on par with countries such as Serbia, the Dominican Republic and Botswana — countries whose economies don’t leap to mind as being mature.
If a precursor to economic maturity is sustained high growth that is widely diffused nationally — no small feat for a country that has a large population and occupies a vast geographic space — China is moving in the opposite direction. Indeed, the IMF forecasts China’s growth to continue to fall, to 6.2 per cent for 2019 and 2020.

More in the Financial Times (reproduced with the kind permission of the author)

Harry Broadman is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on the ongoing trade war between China and the US? Do check out this list.  

Why China and the US will remain at loggerheads – Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

Even when China and the US will reach a kind of trade agreement, both countries have such different ideologies, solving hostilities will be a matter of the long haul, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know to the Atlantic. “Xi has clearly nailed his colors to the mast of a much more state-directed economy,” said Kroeber.

The Atlantic:

Many of the problems Washington wants resolved in China will require more than a few regulatory tweaks. The bureaucratic harassment, theft of intellectual property, and overt favoritism toward local firms that make doing business in China such a nightmare for American chief executives are caused by the very way the Chinese economy works. Changing them means changing China’s basic economic system. Beijing’s leaders cannot possibly achieve such an overhaul in the short term—assuming they even want to.

“It is going to be a very long haul to get the changes the U.S. considers to be required because that really would force China to fundamentally alter the way it organizes itself,” Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner at Gavekal Research and the author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, told me.

At its heart, then, the trade dispute is about far more than tariffs and deficits. It is a contest of two very different national ideologies. Though the Trump administration has deviated from this somewhat, the United States believes that openness—political, economic, and social—creates prosperity, resolves disagreements within society, and promotes the diversity that spawns innovation and progress. China—or, more accurately, its leadership—sees government control as critical to developing the economy, achieving social peace, and forwarding the best interests of the nation overall. Americans tend to think open, free markets that are operating in a fair regulatory environment produce the best economic results. Beijing, on the other hand, doesn’t trust market forces and instead wants the state to play a more direct role in achieving the economic outcomes it determines are necessary for the country...

There is an argument that state largesse leads to wasteful investment that ultimately hampers innovation. But it is doubtful that the current regime of President Xi Jinping is willing to make such significant changes. Since coming to power in 2012, Xi has placed a premium on strengthening Communist Party control over the economy, and despite frequent rhetoric about “opening up” and free trade, he has shown few signs of resuming more liberal reforms that would diminish state dominance.

“Xi has clearly nailed his colors to the mast of a much more state-directed economy,” said Gavekal’s Kroeber. “I’m pretty skeptical that there will be significant movement by China on these large-scale structural issues the U.S. is talking about.”

More at the Atlantic.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on the trade war between China and the US? Do check out this list.  

State tv pulls 'negative' dramas for a good reason - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

State TV has been pulling a set of historical dramas from their channels because they were having a negative influence on their audiences, according to state media. Journalist Zhang Lijia, the author of Lotus, a novel, a bestseller on prostitution in China, understands the ratio behind this action, she tells in the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

Chinese social commentator Zhang Lijia said she understood the concerns of the people and the authorities. 

“I do see some points that the article [critizing the historical dramas] made. To go far in life, you have to play tricks and be ruthless and nasty to each other. Already there’s moral decline in today’s China,” she said. 

Zhang also saw the article’s criticism as a reflection of the current general crackdown, recalling that some conservatives had made similar noises in the past when the political atmosphere was tightened. 

For example, a few years ago a senior retired official had criticised young girls with dyed hair clad in sexy outfits on a talent show for being out of line with socialist values. 

“These costume dramas are hugely popular and therefore money makers. I’d be very surprised if they are banned. Then, who knows. The top leaders have become less predictable,” Zhang said.

More in the South China Morning Post.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.  

Economic slowdown does not stop growth of wealth - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

The stagnation of China's growth caused a massive drop of rich out of the Hurun China Rich List, says Hurun chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf. But that drop has been more than compensated by the record growth of new unicorns in the country, he tells the South China Morning Post. China fostered almost 100 new unicorns in 2018.

The South China Morning Post:

“This year, we have a record high number of people dropping from our Hurun China Rich List because of an economic slowdown,” said Ruper Hoogewerf, the chairman and chief researcher at Hurun, in a statement on Thursday. 

“However, there are still more than 200 new billionaires on the rich list and the leading companies of these new billionaires are these unicorns.” 

The latest Hurun findings further burnish how China’s start-ups – in industries spanning e-commerce and financial technology to transport and artificial intelligence – have helped transform the way the country’s people shop, travel, invest, eat and get entertainment over the past decade, riding on a flood of enthusiastic investments from domestic and overseas venture capitalists. 

On-demand internet services unicorns, however, increased the most to 45. These include car-hailing app operator Ucar and JD Digits, the fintech unit of China’s second-largest e-commerce services provider JD.com. 

While a total of 24 Chinese unicorns went public in 2018, some of these are now trading below their initial public offering prices like smartphone giant Xiaomi Corp and on-demand local services provider Meituan Dianping. That has resulted in investors’ weakened confidence in Chinese unicorns and triggered concerns about these firms being overvalued. 

Hoogewerf, however, suggested these concerns are exaggerated. “Of the 24 unicorns that went IPO last year, over 70 per cent beat their pre-IPO valuation, which goes to show there is less of a bubble in the valuations than some people suggest,” he said. 

Hurun also found that Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou were home to the most number of fast-growing Chinese start-ups last year – with 79, 42 and 18 unicorns, respectively, based in those major cities.

More in the South China Morning Post.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Rupert Hoogewerf? Do check out this list.

How Tencent's WeChat takes on Apple - Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan

Tencent's WeChat released last week to manage its successful mini-programs, moving ahead with an operating system, pushing against the already embattled competitor Apple, says Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan in CNBC.  The fight might focus on China, where mini-programs are most popular.

CNBC:

A recent update of the WeChat app from Chinese tech juggernaut Tencent could have "serious ramifications" for Apple, according to one analyst. 

The WeChat update, which came out this week, involves a redesign in the way mini-programs — apps within the app — are presented. With that change, users now "essentially have a second home screen" on their phones, said Matthew Brennan, co-founder and managing director at consultancy China Channel. 

While a change in user interface may not immediately seem like a game changer, experts said it signals a significant shift in the Chinese tech space... 

Commenting on the potential financial impact of the design change in WeChat on Apple, Brennan...generally agreed that the impact would be more long-term in nature... 

Brennan said the mini-programs on WeChat are "not designed to be very big" and are unlikely to compete against the games that feature on Apple's App Store.

More on CNBC.

Matthew Brennan is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

How to bargain at a China market - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Bargaining at Chinese markets is a show, explains marketing veteran Ashley Duranenok at her daily vlog, and she gives some basic rules. Always stay in your role," is a key one.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more marketing experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

On Taoism and sex - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Western interest on Taoism has much focused on sex and especially premature ejaculation, and Amuse author Kate Lister asked journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, for his take on the subject.

Amuse:

“One act without emission makes the ch'i strong. Two acts without emission makes the hearing acute and the vision clear. Three acts without emission makes all ailments disappear. Four acts without emission and the "five spirits" are all at peace. Five acts without emission makes the pulse full and relaxed. Six acts without emission strengthens the waist and back. Seven acts without emission gives power to the buttocks and thigh. Eight acts without emission causes the whole body to be radiant. Nine acts without emission and one will enjoy unlimited longevity. Ten acts without emission and one attains the realm of the immortals.” 

Such teachings have fascinated the West for hundreds of years, and have been eagerly adopted by neo-Taoist and Tantra groups around the world today. But, our obsession with Taoist sex says far more about us than it does about the Chinese traditions being appropriated. 

Ian Johnson is a Beijing-based writer, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of religious persecution in China. He is also the author of The Souls of China: the Return of Religion After Mao, so it’s fair to say that he is man who knows a thing or two about Taoism in China today. And because everyone likes to receive unsolicited emails about sperm, I contacted him to ask him if Taoist practice in China was as preoccupied with ejaculation and sex as it is in the West. 

He explained: “The emphasis on sexual cultivation in the West is symptomatic for how exploration of foreign cultures often says more about the explorer than the explored. While Chinese do talk about sexual cultivation, it's an infinitesimally small portion of the overall discussion and the overall body of material. In other words, it's not really that important in the Chinese tradition. But sex is important in our culture, so it's not surprising that we mine ancient traditions to see what they say about it.” 

So, Taoists in China do view sex as important, and many practice self-control around orgasm, but sex is actually a very small part of their practice. It’s the Western rendering of Taoist tradition that has emphasized the sex part.

More in Amuse.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.  

How the trade war between China and the US might evolve - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

Negotiators at both China and the White House are figuring out what kind of trade deal might be possible, while the trade war is still moving on. Leading economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, looks into the next moves for both parties for the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

While the deep-rooted issues could take years, perhaps even decades, for China to properly address, some trade experts theorise that there could be some partial wins to be had in the short time remaining before the March deadline. 

Apart from Beijing’s pledges to purchase more American products, a deal could also include commitments to more quickly remove equity caps or joint venture requirements in some sectors in China. 

The country could also easily strengthen enforcement of intellectual property rights and make a “structured agreement to keep talking about more intractable issues such as technology transfer,” said Arthur Kroeber, head of research with China-focused Gavekal Dragonomics. 

“USTR Robert Lighthizer and the trade and security hardliners could probably live with a restricted deal so long as it offered enough space for the US to keep using investment restrictions, export controls and sanctions, and provided a window for more tariffs to be imposed if China fails to make what the US defines as progress,” Kroeber said. 

He added that Lighthizer would want to keep the existing tariffs in place and use the threat of additional levies as his bargaining chip.

More at the South China Morning Post.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form. 

Are you looking for more experts on the ongoing trade war between the US and China? Do check out this list.  

Meng arrest: huge impact on business relations - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

The arrest on Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei CFO in Canada, has a huge impact on business relations, says Hurun chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, who was in Canada for the Hurun Canada Fortune Forum on Sunday in Markham, to the China Daily.

The China Daily:

At a Hurun Canada Fortune Forum on Sunday in Markham, hundreds of business people from the Federation of Canadian Chinese Chamber of Commerce, along with Canadian government officials, gathered to discuss wealth management and trade between the two countries amid tensions over the Dec 1 arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the behest of the United States. 

The Hurun Report is recognized as an authority in tracking the rapid change among China's high net-worth individuals. 

The chairman and chief researcher of the Hurun Report, Rupert Hoogewerf, also known by his Chinese name Hu Run, said at the forum that the arrest of Meng has affected local businesses. 

"Everybody in our community is talking about it because it has impacted our business and travel, and we don't want to see this tension escalating," he said, adding that the globalization of wealth needs "more connection rather than disconnection". 

There has been a lot of wealth created in China over the last 20 years, and the current trend is to spread out and diversify such wealth to the rest of the world, Hoogewerf said. 

"The first choice is North America. We see the US and Canada are the preferred destinations for Chinese to live. Many Chinese want to do business in North America, but the current situation needs to be resolved first to facilitate trade and business activities," he said.

More at the China Daily. Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Rupert Hoogewerf? Do check out this list.  

Hainan: visa for talents - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Bureaucratic rules have hampered China's access to international talents, for example, because of troublesome rules on visas for experts. But Hainan is going to do this better, says innovation expert and managing director of the Chinaccelarator in Shanghai William Bao Bean to the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

Another key piece of the start-up puzzle is access to talent. While Hainan introduced a visa free policy in May 2018, allowing visitors from 59 countries – including the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Japan to stay for up to 30 days – a tech hub it needs more engineers, not beachgoers. 

So the red tape previously involved in getting a working visa has been streamlined for professionals. “If you’re a foreigner without a bachelor’s degree and you want to start up something in China, it’s almost impossible for you to get a working visa in big cities like Beijing, but it’s possible to get one in Hainan,” said William Bao Bean, a general partner at SOSV.

More in the South China Morning Post.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on innovations at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Luxury brands got it wrong on Douyin - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Luxury brands jumped on Douyin, a hip short video app that is popular among China’s young social media users, that has even been called the WeChat for luxury goods. Wrong, very wrong, says marketing veteran Ashley Dudarenok to the Jing Daily.

Jing Daily:

To Ashley Galina Dudarenok, author of the Amazon bestseller “Digital China: Working with Bloggers, Influencers and KOLs,” it was a typical example illustrating how luxury brands over-cater to fashion and digital trends in China.... 

Another concern is whether their targeted audience has the purchasing power to buy luxury goods. “As it turns out, most of the Douyin users cannot afford luxury goods,” said Dudarenok,...“Given the premium and exclusive nature of luxury goods, the sales-conversation rate generating from marketing on Douyin will be relatively low. In other words, there will be more people viewing the content but [far fewer] people purchasing products.”

More at the Jing Daily.

Ashley Dudarenok is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more luxury brands experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Xi's road for China to become a global power - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

President Xi Jinping is effectively replacing former leader Deng Xiaoping as the thought leader of China's development, and he is well on his road to set the road for the country as a global power, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, at Bloomberg.

Bloomberg:

When President Xi Jinping assumed power in 2013, many hoped he’d turn out to be a leader in Deng’s reformist vein. But while Deng wanted his market-based reforms to make China rich, Xi has reasserted the control of the state in an effort to turn the country into a political and technological superpower. 

“One of Xi’s overarching goals in terms of economic management is to effectively, if not formally, declare the end of the era of reform a la Deng Xiaoping,” said Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner and managing director at research firm Gavekal Dragonomics. Whereas Deng and subsequent leaders bolstered the role of private businesses in the economy and reduced that of the state, Xi seems to think the balance is now about right, Kroeber said.... 

The economy expanded 6.5 percent in the third quarter, the slowest pace since the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2009. But if China can keep the rate above 5 percent well into the 2020s, per capita income levels will close the gap on developed nations, said Kroeber, who is the author of “China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

More at Bloomberg.

Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more political experts at the China Speaker Bureau? Do check out this list.  

China's grim trade outlook for 2019 - Sara Hsu

Sara Hsu

2019 does not look good for China's economy, says financial analyst Sara Hsu, as the effects on import and export of the trade war kick in, and China was experiencing a slowdown already before the trade war started. In the US specific industries are hard hit, like automotive, agriculture and tech, she adds.

More details on the declining automotive industry by Sara Hsu here.

Sara Hsu is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more financial analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Sex, money and guanxi - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus, a novel on prostitution in today's China talks ahead of her lecture at Spittoon Book Club talk January 19 at Timesdirect.tv in Beijing. (Follow the links for more details)

Timesdirect:

It seems that in your book, prostitution is portrayed as a legitimate choice when rampant capitalism condemns a young woman to a life without any thrill or space for individual expression. 

I certainly wouldn’t use the word “legitimate.” Rather, for some of the most vulnerable women, it is one of the few or only choices they have – to sell their own bodies. For girls serving the upscale market, it is sometimes a lifestyle choice, a way to obtain quick money. For clients, yes, some visit prostitutes seeking thrill, among other reasons. 

At some point in the book Lotus, the protagonist, finds pleasure with one of her clients, one pleasure that she never felt before. The stigma of prostitution is one thing, but the stigma of women’s sexuality is also another subject that you touch upon. 

I’d like to portray women as three-dimensional human beings with sexual desires. I found it quite interesting that some women experienced sexual pleasure that they never experienced with their husbands. Some felt bad about it as they regarded their work as “dirty” and it felt wrong to get pleasure out of this disgraceful job. This is one of the reasons that Lotus turns to Buddha – to cleanse herself. 

Lotus finds a very understanding and open-minded man in the character of the photographer Bing but their relationship is still complicated. What was the meaning behind Bing’s character? 

The photographer Bing is obsessed with photographing the girls. Apart from his noble reasons, there are also selfish reasons. It is a complicated relationship because they come from such different backgrounds and have different expectations. By introducing the character Bin, a better educated urban man, I was able to discuss some broad social issues. 

In the end, we learn that Lotus’ happiness is not going to be dependent on her relationship with a man. 

Yes, for me, it is a novel about a young woman finding herself. 

We need more novels about sex, money, and guanxi. 

Of course!

More at Timesdirect.tv

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Bridge between East and West - Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers and his daughter Happy

US investor Jim Rogers started to explore China in 1984 and has since become a bridge builder between the East and the West. At China's state TV CGTN he dives into his views on China, the way he raises his family in Singapore and the ongoing madness in Washington. Jim Rogers published several bestsellers, including A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing.

Jim Rogers is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Jim Rogers? Do check out this list.

What Tencent does better than Apple - Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan

Zhang Xiaolong, the founder of Tencent's WeChat, delivered a speech on how the future of the company looks like. Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan looks at the way Tencent is doing things different than Apple, and why their mini-programs might be a winner, in Technode.

Technode:

According to Zhang, the strength of mini-programs lies in its decentralized ecosystem. “Our team from now on will invest more manpower and resources in this area, so we can treat all companies equally, including the ones we’ve invested in.” 

Matthew Brennan, co-founder of China Channel said that the concept of decentralization was “a bit counterintuitive” compared to Apple’s carefully-curated App Store. But mini-programs have proved a “great way to acquire users that wasn’t there before.” 

The feature banks on WeChat’s widespread adoption to draw in older or less tech-savvy folks who don’t usually download many apps, Brennan said. It’s spawned successes like a popular mini-program for public dancing—a popular pastime among middle-aged people, particularly women—that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Their small size also lowers the barrier to entry for developers, saving them time and money.

More in Technode.

Matthew Brennan published notes on the 4-hour speech by (Allen) Zhang here.

Matthew Brennan is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on what Chinese companies do differently? Do check out this list.  

How can brands reach China's slash generation - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff

Social engagement has changed the Post-'95 generation in China beyond recognition. China veteran Tom Doctoroff dives into the ways brands can reach this complicated "slash generation" for Mumbrella Asia. How a new generation walks away from traditional conventions.

Tom Doctoroff:

Several forces have expanded the Post-95 generation’s world view in China. The country now boasts a generation that embraces multidimensional identities and paths for the future. 

The youth refuse to be confined to a narrow set of interests. They refer to themselves as the “slash generation.” According to a survey conducted by Ctrip, the online travel portal, 85% of Post-90s believe a “modern person should have a multitude of interests.” Their role models are people who have achieved just that: Ji Lingchen is a Taobao brand creator/reality TV star/hip hop song writer. 

The explosion of possible passions combined with the ease of forging online communities has transformed social engagement. Small “tribes” of individuals who share similar niche interests — street culture, bodybuilding, hardcore gaming, gay choristers, cosplayers — have blossomed. 

Acceptance of non-conformist pursuits has shaped the Post-95s’ view of the future. So, too, has the burgeoning of careers that did not exist a few years ago — for example, UX designers, data scientists, short film directors and cloud service analysts. For now at least, the new generation eschews “conventional” definitions of success and dulled-out corporate hierarchies. 

But then looks are deceiving. 

In China, everything is a means to an end, and requires a payoff, now or in the future. Experiences aren’t simply enjoyed. 

Passions need to be converted into social currency that lubricates forward advancement. Broad societal endorsement from parents, teachers and classmates is becoming less important than acknowledgement from “the people that matter”: members of the same sub-tribes. 

For instance, Xu, an independent traveller, says: “My friends and I learn from each other’s experiences so we can plan for an even better trip next time.” Multidimensional passions and a broad worldview are spoken of as “tools” in “the toolbox of life,” skills or “weaponry” that can be deployed to overcome unexpected hurdles.

More in Mumbrella Asia.

Tom Doctoroff is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more branding experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.