How Trump made China stronger – Zhang Lijia

 

Zhang Lijia

China’s citizens have profoundly changed their view of the United States and their president, Trump, journalist Zhang Lijia writes at Democracy Asia.  He is called the “nation builder”, helping to improve the global standing of the country worldwide. “Many Chinese believe his erratic behaviour and foreign policy blunders weakened the United States and gave China greater diplomatic room to manoeuvre,” she writes.

Zhang Lijia:

At first, Trump was seen less as a politician than as a reality television character who had somehow wandered into the  White House. Chinese netizens mocked his hair, marvelled at his rhetorical excesses and, for a time, even admired his supposed business success. Over the years, however, amusement has faded, and hostility has grown.

This shift reflects not only changing Chinese perceptions of  America, but also a deeper transformation in how China sees itself and its place in the world. Most revealing was the nickname  Chinese netizens gave Trump: ‘Chuan Jianguo’ (川建国), which roughly translates as ‘Trump the nation builder’.

Jianguo is an immensely popular Chinese name, borne by nearly a million people. The joke was that Trump was actually helping to make China stronger. By launching trade wars and trying to cut China off from advanced technologies, he unintentionally accelerated Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance and fuelled nationalist sentiment. More importantly, many Chinese believe his erratic behaviour and foreign policy blunders weakened the United States and gave China greater diplomatic room to manoeuvre.

More at Democracy Asia.

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.

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How robots take over China’s restaurant industry – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

Robots and automation are taking over many industries in China. Innovation expert Ashley Dudarenok dives into the restaurant industry, where the change for waiters has already been profound, she writes at Chozan

Ashley Dudarenok:

China’s restaurant industry is no longer experimenting with automation. The question has shifted from “if” to “how fast” and “how much.”

In 2025, the country’s service robot market was projected to reach $40 billion, with growth at a compound annual rate of 17.1 percent to $195 billion by 2035. For restaurant operators facing relentless labor pressure and thinning margins, robot waiters have become a commercial necessity rather than a novelty.

China’s catering income reached approximately $680 billion in the first 10 months of 2025, up 3.3 percent year-on-year. The sector accounted for 11.2 percent of total retail sales in October.

For executives, the real question is no longer novelty. It is operational leverage. A restaurant robot must reduce pressure during peak-hour service, support human staff, and fit into a broader digital stack that may include POS integration, table service automation, fleet management, and RaaS models.

More at 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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How China’s medicine market changed – Mark Schaub

 

Mark Schaub

In the past, China purchased licenses to sell medicines from Western companies. But today, China sells its own medicines to the West. The previously attractive market has changed profoundly, says China lawyer Mark Schaub on the website of his law firm King&Wood. “For many international companies if the question is “How do we sell into China?” then they may be increasingly playing yesterday’s game,” he writes

Mark Schaub:

In 2025, the direction of deal flow changed. Chinese biotechs signed approximately US$135 billion in outbound licensing deals, licensing their own molecules to multinational pharmaceutical companies. By contrast, inbound licensing (i.e. where Chinese companies acquired rights to foreign drugs) fell to below US$1 billion. This is not a narrowing gap. The tide has turned.

The reason is straightforward. Large multinational pharmaceutical companies are approaching a patent cliff, with exclusivity over many of their highest-selling products coming to an end and no pipeline to replace the lost revenue. After more than a decade of sustained investment in R&D, China’s biotech sector increasingly has what the doctor ordered: clinical-stage assets in oncology, metabolic disease and antibody engineering, often developed faster and at significantly lower cost than comparable Western programmes.

This shift requires multinational pharma and medtech companies to rethink what a China strategy actually means. If China becomes a sourcing market and not simply a distribution market this means you need different relationships in China and different transaction structures.

Sourcing requires due diligence on your counterpart’s intellectual property, clinical data, manufacturing capability and regulatory compliance. It means thinking like a buyer rather than a seller. Many international companies have commercial teams that have spent decades developing expertise in selling into China but buying innovation requires a different set of commercial and legal capabilities.

For many international companies if the question is “How do we sell into China?” then they may be increasingly playing yesterday’s game. The more important question for 2026 may be “How do we buy from China and how do we structure this business to protect our interests and preserving strategic flexibility?”

More at the website of King&Wood.

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.

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How warehouse robots take over China’s logistics – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

AI and robots are taking over many industries in China. Innovation expert Ashley Dudarenok sees how robots take over the country’s warehouses; she explains on her blog, Chozan. “This is a fundamental rewiring of how goods move through the world’s largest manufacturing and e-commerce economy,” she writes.

Ashley Dudarenok:

China’s logistics sector is in the midst of a structural transformation, and warehouse robots sit at the center of that shift. The numbers tell a clear story. In 2025, the Chinese industrial mobile robot (AGV/AMR) market reached approximately 28 billion yuan, growing at an annual rate of around 28 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing segments in logistics automation.

Industry projections place the 2026 logistics AGV市场规模 at 12.5 to 15 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth between 22 and 26 percent. This is not an incremental improvement. This is a fundamental rewiring of how goods move through the world’s largest manufacturing and e-commerce economy.

The strategic question is no longer if automation will reshape Chinese logistics, but how fast and through which technologies. The answer hinges on a clear understanding of autonomous warehouse robots, their AGV predecessors, and the broader logistics automation strategy taking shape across Chinese industry.

More at 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.

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

How China’s open source strategy developed – Alvin Wang Graylin

 

Alvin Wang Graylin

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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China forces to rethink e-commerce in the West – Bjorn Ognibeni

 

Bjorn Ognibeni

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.

Bjorn Ognibeni 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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Update on the Xiongan New Area – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

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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What does China want out of its relationship with the US? – Victor Shih

 

Victor Shih

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.

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Why you call it an AI race, when there is no finish line – Alvin Wang Graylin

 

Alvin Wang Graylin

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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How AI undermines return policy of e-commerce – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

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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