AI expert Alvin Wang Graylin explains how China’s open-source strategy developed, not as a big plan by the communist party, but because they were forced by US policies, he says on Facebook.
Alvin Wang Graylin 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.
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Western e-commerce companies have brought few new developments over the past decade, and only China offers new solutions we can learn from, argues Bjorn Ognibeni, co-founder of China Briefs at the E-Commerce Expo in Berlin. Learning from China is crucial for e-commerce in the West, he adds.
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In Northern China, the building of the new city Xiongan New Area is in full swing, writes China expert Ashley Dudarenok on her weblog. “These developments signaled serious progress toward creating a liveable, diverse city rather than a sterile administrative zone,” she writes.
Ashley Dudarenok:
In northern China, a new urban district is transforming expectations of what a city can be. The Xiongan New Area is being developed roughly 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing as part of a deliberate policy to disperse some non‑capital functions and promote coordinated development across the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.
Starting in 2025, the area entered a high‑quality construction phase, with operational headquarters, universities, hospitals, a smart urban network, and green spaces rapidly taking shape. Chinese authorities describe it as a “city of the future” that blends smart infrastructure, environmental restoration, innovation clusters, and human‑centered design…
In April 2025, Xiongan had reached a pivotal stage. Large‑scale infrastructure projects and relocation efforts were underway simultaneously. New sports and cultural facilities appeared; a 40,000‑seat stadium opened in March that year.
Crucially, centrally administered state‑owned enterprises (SOEs) began moving their headquarters into the new area. The China Satellite Network Group Co., Ltd. (CSCN), for example, started operations at the end of 2024, while other SOEs were constructing headquarters nearby.
This cluster effect attracted about sixty aerospace‑information enterprises and catalyzed an industrial ecosystem spanning satellite internet, spatiotemporal information, aerospace vehicles, and intelligent manufacturing.
Relocation efforts extended beyond corporate offices. In early 2025, over 4,000 enterprises originally based in Beijing had registered operations in Xiongan. Education and healthcare institutions followed. Four universities from Beijing began building campuses, and the Xiongan branch of Peking Union Medical College Hospital was scheduled to start construction soon.
The reform and development bureau reported that investments in the new area exceeded 860 billion yuan in February 2025. These developments signaled serious progress toward creating a liveable, diverse city rather than a sterile administrative zone.
More at Ashley’s weblog Chozan.
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.
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China has arrived as a superpower and wants its recognition as a superpower from the US, says Victor Shih, the Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations at the University of California, San Diego, in a discussion at the National Committee on US-China Relations. That is a major shift from the past, he adds.
Victor Shih 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.
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AI expert Alvin Wang Graylin discusses the future of AI and the role the US and China might play at the Asia Society Northern California. You cannot talk about an AI race if there is no finish line, he argues. We talk about multiple races where nobody is really in charge, he adds.
Alvin Wang Graylin 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.
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Easy return policies have been a key in e-commerce, but AI is offering China’s consumers an easy way to commit fraud, writes consumer expert Ashley Dudarenok on her weblog. A buyer purchases a product, photographs it in good condition, and feeds the image into an AI tool with a simple instruction: “Add mold spots to this fruit” or “Create a tear in this clothing item,” she writes.
Ashley Dudarenok:
Return fraud is not a new phenomenon. But the accessibility of generative AI has transformed it from a manual, high-effort activity into a scalable threat. Previously, fake damage photos required basic photo-editing skills. Today, anyone with a smartphone can generate convincing fake photos of damaged goods in under 20 seconds.
The mechanism is straightforward. A buyer purchases a product, photographs it in good condition, and feeds the image into an AI tool with a simple instruction: “Add mold spots to this fruit” or “Create a tear in this clothing item.”
The AI generates a modified image that appears to show a defective product. The buyer then submits this AI-generated evidence as part of a refund-only claim, keeping both the product and the refund.
This form of refund abuse has proliferated across categories from fresh produce to apparel to electronics. The scale is concerning. On social platforms, tutorials openly advertise “refund-only tricks” for a fee of 288 yuan, with claims that a single account can successfully execute approximately 30 refunds. Some operators even offer “代退” services, charging 170 yuan to forge medical certificates or damage evidence.
More on Ashley Dudarenok’s weblog.
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The blockage of the Street of Hormuz threw the world into a fuel crisis, while China was able to fend off most of the effects. China veteran Kaiser Kuo describes how the strategy of electrification offered a way for China to avoid the spike in fuel prices, although it is not clear if other countries can copy this strategy, he explains at the World Economic Forum.
Kaiser Kuo:
The conflict that erupted at the end of February 2026 was, among other things, an energy shock. Nine weeks of disruption in and around the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent to nearly $120 a barrel, sent liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices to multi-year highs, and forced governments to confront the fragility of supply chains they had spent the post-COVID years assuming were secure. The shock exposed which economies had built genuine resilience into their energy systems, and which had merely diversified their suppliers of imported hydrocarbons.
On paper, China should have been among the most exposed economies. Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy has noted that roughly 45-50% of its crude imports transit Hormuz, and nearly a third of its LNG comes from the Gulf. But China’s economy proved considerably more insulated than those numbers would predict. Goldman Sachs trimmed its 2026 growth forecast for the country by only 0.2 percentage points – the smallest downgrade in the Asia-Pacific region.
More at the World Economic Forum.
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Innovation expert Ashley Dudarenok dives into the successful innovation strategy that has allowed China technology giant Huawei to play the development game differently from its international competitors; she writes on her website, Chozan. “For business leaders trying to understand where China is headed, Huawei is not simply a telecom company to watch,” she writes.
Ashley Dudarenok:
Huawei news has dominated global tech headlines for years, but most Western coverage stops at sanctions, geopolitics, and smartphone bans. That misses the bigger story. Huawei is not just surviving external pressure.
It is using that pressure to build something structurally different from anything the West has seen: a vertically integrated, domestically rooted technology ecosystem that is quietly reshaping industries from smart cities to AI infrastructure.
For business leaders trying to understand where China is headed, Huawei is not simply a telecom company to watch. It is a live case study in how Chinese firms build, compete, and scale under constraints that would have shuttered most multinationals.
This article unpacks Huawei’s innovation model, its latest product and enterprise moves, and what it all signals for global business strategy.
Business analyst Shaun Rein, author of r, discusses the push for a war with China, now that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has identified China as the real enemy for the organisation, even though China is eager to improve relations with European countries, he tells George Galloway at Moats.
Shaun Rein 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.
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AI expert Alvin Wang Graylin discusses the AI race between China and the US with James M. Lindsay at the Council of Foreign Relations. He explains why the current priorities for winning that race are fundamentally wrong.
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Turning AI into a paid platform is a key criterion for China’s success, writes marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok on her weblog, as video AI has become a major commercial success in setting up paid platforms. “Chinese video AI has become one of China’s clearest tests for artificial intelligence commercialization. The category is being judged by paid usage, creator demand, and platform placement,” she writes.
Ashley Dudarenok:
Chinese video AI has become one of China’s clearest tests for artificial intelligence commercialization. The category is being judged by paid usage, creator demand, and platform placement.
China has a rare advantage here. Video tools can enter short video feeds, ecommerce stores, ad accounts, and creator studios at the same time. This embedded distribution gives Chinese video AI a faster route from model release to business use…
Chinese video AI now has commercial numbers that most generative video categories still lack. Kling AI crossed USD20 million in monthly revenue in December 2025. That translated into USD240 million in Annualized Revenue Run Rate (ARR).
Annualized Revenue Run Rate means the yearly revenue implied by one month of recurring revenue. Kuaishou said Kling had reached USD100 million ARR in March 2025, ten months after launch.
The pace did not slow at the start of 2026. Caixin put Kling’s ARR above USD300 million by January 2026, with 2025 revenue of 1.04 billion yuan (USD153 million). Kling’s business had also entered funding talks. A possible spinoff carried a target valuation of up to USD20 billion.
These figures put commercial viability at the center of the story. The useful test is whether users keep paying after the launch excitement fades. Kling’s curve suggests that professional creators, merchants, and commercial teams are paying for repeat output.
China’s wider AI base gives this category more room to mature. The State Council said China’s core AI industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan (USD176.4 billion) in 2025, with more than 6,200 AI companies. A separate State Council summary put China’s internet user base at 1.125 billion and generative AI adoption at 42.8 percent by the end of 2025.
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.
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