China might catch up with US innovation, in the long run - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Perhaps not right away, but in the long run innovation in China might catch up with the US, says business analyst Andy Mok in the South China Morning Post. “A lot of research universities in the US – like MIT, Caltech – they’ve had decades of operations [since the second world war and the cold war],” said Mok.

The South China Morning Post:

Some have pointed to China’s tech gap with the US as evidence that the Asian giant does not have what it takes to achieve technological competitiveness.

China, however, is still in the early stages when it comes to developing technology, according to Andy Mok, senior research fellow at the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based non-government think tank. 

“A lot of research universities in the US – like MIT, Caltech – they’ve had decades of operations [since the second world war and the cold war],” said Mok. 

“It’d be quite a myth to say that the US system is so successful technologically because of its political or economic system.” 

While semiconductors may not have been a top priority for China until recently, threats of a tech cold war which could cut off the country from US technology, including chips, mean China will double down on developing its own proprietary technology.

In the short term, China could fall further behind the US, Mok said.

“Some of these indigenously produced components were a ‘nice to have’ but not a ‘must-have’ before … it was one priority among many,” Mok said. “Will China’s chips be cutting edge? Probably not, but they will be good enough to be used in the short term.”... 

“Many of the most valuable US companies today are seen as tech leaders because they were able to piggyback on US hegemony,” he said. “If you could win in the US, you could probably win everywhere else.”

More at the South China Morning Post.

Andy Mok 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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Next in the trade war: the financial markets - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Wall Street is going to be the next casualty in the trade war after it moved from tariffs to tech, says Beijing-based analyst Andy Mok in the New York Times. Corporate China is already preparing for a decoupling of both financial markets, he says.

The New York Times:

As the United States ramps up other barriers to trade, the outlook for the financial sector on both sides of the Pacific is starting to change, part of a broader decoupling between the two economies. 

“There are growing calls on the U.S. side for complete decoupling, which is causing Chinese enterprises to re-evaluate their reliance not just on U.S. technology but also on other U.S. resources, including financial markets,” said Andy Mok, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a leading research group in Beijing.

China has long considered Wall Street an ally...

Hong Kong, so it is not clear what role, if any, the trade war had in its considerations. Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, had said at a conference in January last year that he would consider whether to do another stock listing in Hong Kong. 

For Alibaba, a Hong Kong share sale could allow more Chinese investors to put their money in a company that many of them use in their daily lives. Alibaba’s stepped-up discussions over listing in Hong Kong were reported earlier by Bloomberg. 

With the trade war going on, Mr. Mok, at the Beijing research group, said Chinese companies were now more likely to think twice about depending on American financial markets. 

“There is no desire on the Chinese side for decoupling,” he said, “but it is maybe a prudent management decision to reduce risk exposure.”

More in the New York Times.

Andy Mok 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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Why 5G will change our lives as we know it - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

While the world is still trying to come to terms with 5G and China's position on the new technology, China itself is deploying 5G on a large scale. Andy Mok, a non-resident fellow at Center for China and Globalization explains for state-owned CGTN what the consumers might still miss on this development.

CGTN:

Andy Mok, a non-resident fellow at Center for China and Globalization, stated that 5G was more than high Internet speed. 

"Those '90 percent underwater' part of the 'iceberg' that people didn’t know about 5G would trigger the essential breakthroughs for the industry 4.0," he said. 

"All of these applications that are for faster download speed to consumers is sexy, but I think what’s really important is the 90 percent underwater part that people don’t see. 

"What 5G is enabling, is hundreds of billions of devices to talk to each other. And that would change every industry, whether we are talking about transportation in driverless cars, health care in telemedicine, urban management with smart cities."

More at CGTN.

Andy Mok 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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Why the 11.11 shopping festival is more than Black Friday - Any Mok

Andy Mok

In selling commodities, China's 11.11 Single's Day and the American Black Friday have much in common, says business analyst Andy Mok. But China's shopping festival has developed much deeper than just a selling opportunity for retailers, he argues at the CGTN.

Andy Mok:

This year's event in China has been rechristened as the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival. While superficially it appears similar to Black Friday, underneath the hood it is quite different and the implications for the future of retail are profound. 

The goal of Black Friday is quite simple: move merchandise so American retailers can book more sales. However, while 11.11 started with the same goal it has since evolved to achieve much more sophisticated objectives. According to Daniel Zhang, Alibaba CEO, the company's goal is not to dominate e-commerce but achieve the complete digitization of retail, both online and offline, which it dubs “New Retail.” 

Rather than just boost sales by offering extreme deals, brands participating in 11.11 now see it as a way to acquire new customers and strengthen customer engagement. One way brands do this is by promoting limited edition products instead of big discounts with 180,000 brands from inside and outside China participating. 

As part of its New Retail vision Alibaba has launched a business like Hema, an integrated retail experience combining a brick and mortar supermarket, restaurant and distribution center that delivers within a three-kilometer radius, and an automobile vending machine concept that allows prospective buyers to try out new cars before ever interacting with a salesperson. 

According to Zhang, 11.11 has now become an important platform for showcasing these emerging capabilities for new retail. Also, this edition of 11.11 includes 200,000 mom-and-pop stores powered by Alibaba's Ling Shou Tong to provide online sales promotions and augmented reality-based red packets that offer discounts at 3,000 “Tmall Corner Stores.” Furthermore, through Lazada, its Southeast Asian affiliate, Alibaba hosted its 11.11 Shopping Festival across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. 

As the above examples show, 11.11 has evolved to be much more than just a shopping day and is now a key component of how a Chinese company is leading the way in creating the future of global retail. Perhaps before too long, we will see Amazon and others adopting similar approaches to keep pace and Black Friday and Cyber Monday may start exhibiting Chinese characteristics.

More at the CGTN.

Andy Mok 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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One Belt, One Road: a debt trap? - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Western media have been portraying China's massive investment program One Belt, One Road (OBOR) or Belt Road Initiative (BRI) as a colonial trick to put developing countries into debt, and then seize their assets. Business analyst Andy Mok sees debt problems as a normal business risk in highly complicated investments on infrastructure, he tells at the state-owned CGTN.

Andy Mok:

Since its inception in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has garnered worldwide attention because of the scale and scope of its ambition. It has also become the target of criticism and suspicion from various quarters. 

Recently, the notion of “debt-trap diplomacy” has been prominently featured in mainstream Western media in an effort to mislead and tilt the opinion of elites lacking direct experience of the countries engaged in BRI projects and the nature of infrastructure investment against this initiative. 

Proponents of this idea claim that Chinese enterprises, at the behest of the government, encourage targeted countries to take on burdensome amounts of debt for BRI-related infrastructure, knowing full well that these debts are too big to be repaid. 

When the borrowing country inevitably encounters repayment problems, China can then seize the assets in question. According to these people, this is a deliberate strategy pursued by China to advance its geopolitical interests at the expense of debtor countries. 

Sri Lanka's Hambantota port project has become the poster child to illustrate China’s allegedly nefarious motives. For example, a New York Times article titled "How China Got Sri Lanka to Cough Up a Port" describes the initial loan of 307 million US dollars to kick-start the project by China's Export-Import Bank in this way: “To obtain the loan, Sri Lanka was required to accept Beijing’s preferred company, China Harbor, as the port’s builder...That is a typical demand of China for its projects around the world, rather than allowing an open bidding process.” 

While the pejorative insinuation is clear, there are perhaps less conspiratorial explanations for such practices. Here's one: Infrastructure projects are extremely risky because they are highly complex and therefore many things can go wrong, resulting in delays and cost overruns.

More at CGTN.

Andy Mok 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 China's outbound investments? Do check out this list.  

US brands fear higher prices as trade war moves on - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

The People's Daily has hit out to Apple for making its capital on the expense of China, but all iconic American brands fear to be hit by the ongoing trade war between China and the US, says business analyst Andy Mok at CGTN.

CGTN:

Apple has now become the first-ever one-trillion-U.S.-dollar publicly listed American company. But with a trade war ratcheting up between China and the United States for over a month now, and the Chinese market being vital to Apple, will the company get away intact? 

According to Andy Mok, founder of Red Pagoda Resources in Beijing, any iconic American brands will be concerned about China-U.S. trade tensions, because they are very visible symbols and could easily become collateral damage. But he pointed out that it's the consumer who will finally bear the price. 

"Apple’s unique position is that it’s shown their customers are very price insensitive that they can get away with charging 800 dollars, 900 dollars, even 1,000 dollars for their smartphone. So I think Tim Cook is very right in saying that this is an attack on the consumer, because I think they will and would be able to successfully pass that through to the final consumer," Mok said during a discussion on CGTN's World Insight with Tian Wei.

More at CGTN.

Andy Mok 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 the World Cup turned mobile in China - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

The past World Cup not only gathered a massive audience in China but also marked a switch from classic TV to mobile, says China analyst Andy Mok at CGTN. Content creation has become a major industry in this traditional sport.

CGTN:

Andy Mok, a digital economy observer, said the large World Cup viewership on China's mobile Internet was game-changing, and was made possible by technology, its user base and content creation. 

"The smart phone revolution totally reinvented the viewing content participation experience. It used to be many people around one screen, passively absorbing content. Today, it's a multi-screen experience and this is the way, especially the young people, consuming, creating and distributing digital content," Mok told CGTN.

More in CGTN.

Andy Mok 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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Cross-border e-commerce: tough to realize opportunities - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Cross-border e-commerce offers huge opportunities, not only for China but for SME's globally. Realizing those opportunities will not happen by itself, but needs huge efforts, says business consultant Andy Mok in a commentary for state-broadcaster CGTN.

Andy Mok:

But China offers more than just a proven model. It also provides an enormous market for e-commerce businesses around the world. According to the General Administration of China Customs (GACC) cross-border e-commerce turnover increased 80.6 percent from a year earlier to 90.24 billion yuan last year with imports skyrocketing 116.4 percent to 56.59 billion yuan. With rising incomes, urbanization and increasing outbound travel, demand for a greater variety of products and services from around the world will only continue to increase in China. 

However, realizing these opportunities will take much effort. For example, cross-border e-commerce transactions are typically smaller than traditional import-export deals. According to the GACC, Chinese customs handled 660 million manifests for e-commerce trade in the past year, 8.4 times as much as for conventional imports and exports. On Nov. 11, China's Singles' Day online shopping festival, Chinese customs processed a total of 16.2 million orders, about 187 orders per second. Thus, customs agencies around the world must be ready for a much higher volume of transactions to process. 

More generally, fully realizing the potential of cross-border e-commerce will require a coordinated implementation of the e-commerce triad of online platforms, logistics and finance involving governmental entities, businesses and other organizations. Because of the inherently multilateral nature of cross-border e-commerce, the establishment of a framework, guidelines and standards and mechanism for evolution and refinement of these elements is crucial. 

The First Global Cross-Border E-Commerce Conference, co-hosted by the World Customs Organization and GACC, set an important milestone for what will likely be one of the most powerful trade, economic development and poverty alleviation opportunities in the history of mankind.

More at CGTN.

Andy Mok 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 e-commerce experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.    

Why online education booms in China - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Online education is doing extremely well in China. E-commerce expert Andy Mok gives three main reasons why online education is a winner. "The Chinese people have valued education for thousands of years," he says at WomenofChina.

WomenofChina:

Analysts believe China could become one of the world's most vibrant online education markets, given its growing spending power and under-supply of educational resources, as well as the introduction of the two-child policy. 

"Well, there is clearly a tremendous demand for online education. I think there are three reasons for that. First one is cultural. The Chinese people have valued education for thousands of years. The second reason is technological. Especially now, more and more Chinese have access to the interview through their mobile phones, faster bandwidth and more powerful processors. And finally, it's political. In the recent concluded 19th Party Congress, Xi Jinping emphasized one of the challenges facing China today is unequal and unbalanced development, so online education is potentially a very powerful tool for addressing this unequal and unbalanced development," said Andy Mok, the managing director of Red Pagoda Resources.

More in WomenofChina.

Andy Mok 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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Moving to a cash- and cardless society - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

China has all but abolished cash and bank cards, and the rest of the world might be following fast. CBS talks to economist Andy Mok. China had no good working banking system, and moved fast to mobile payment, but the rest of the world might follow soon.

Andy Mok 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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this list. 

VPN access key for innovation - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Panic struck when media reported China would ban all VPN activity in February 2018, allowing to circumvent China's internet censorship. That was a shock for many, and seems to have been confused with a business licensing system for VPN's. Whatever is going to happen, innovation and startups need unfettered access to VPN, says innovation expert Andy Mok to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg:

China’s government plans to allow businesses to keep using VPNs for access to the outside world -- if they obtain approval for corporate lines and register their usage. But it’s not clear how easily businesses will get VPNs approved and, even if they do, employees may be out of luck when they work from home or from their smartphones on the road. Ambitious entrepreneurs and startups may be hardest hit. 

“VPNs are absolutely critical and foundational to almost any businesses in China, large or small – and especially important for innovative businesses,” said Andy Mok, Beijing-based managing director at Red Pagoda Resources, which advises startups and other companies in China. “Denying access to VPNs in China would demolish the entire stack of the startup ecosystem here.” 

Chinese regulators for now are trying to assuage fears of a wider crackdown. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a statement Wednesday in which it emphasized its original January notice governing VPN use should remain the main point of reference, and promised not to sever legitimate means of accessing the global internet. Yet frequent users are mindful of the country’s spotty record on that front. 

Many software developers in China rely on overseas code libraries, which may be inaccessible without VPNs. For instance, the popular developers’ site Github was briefly blocked in China in 2013. 

“Despite all the advances that China has made, there’s still a lot of product innovations that happen abroad that entrepreneurs in China can and need to learn from, and they often learn through overseas news sites,” Mok said.

More in Bloomberg.

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

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Tencent's Ma: the Don Corleone of China - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Tencent has become the major force in China, and refusing an offer by the giant is impossible for any startup, says internet expert Andy Mok to Bloomberg. Pony Ma, the CEO of Tencent, is almost like Don Corleone, he says. And it is going international too.

Bloomberg:

WeChat now has 937.8 million active users, more than a third of whom spend in excess of four hours a day on the service. To put that in context, consider that the average person around the world spends a little more than an hour a day on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter combined. Tencent’s services are so pervasive in China that startups there find it difficult to refuse forging alliances with or accepting investment dollars from the company. 

“It’s a little bit like the Godfather Don Corleone saying, ‘I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse,’ ” says Andy Mok, founder and president of Beijing-based consultant Red Pagoda Resources LLC. “If you don’t take their money, and they invest in a competitor, it can be deadly. 

With WeChat’s rise, Tencent has tried to act like, or at least look like, a global technology leader. Later this year it will join Apple, Amazon.com, and Facebook in opening pricey new headquarters—a pair of conjoined glass skyscrapers designed by Seattle-based architecture firm NBBJ Design LLP. The towers, linked by three angular skybridges, resemble giant, slow-dancing robots.

More in Bloomberg.

Andy Mok 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 internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

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A bold move by Tencent's Pony Ma - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Tencent's CEO Pony Ma is not very well known for his media appearances. So, when he joined the discussion about Hong Kong's future, it took political analysts like Andy Mok by surprise, he tells Bloomberg.

Bloomberg:

“The typical move is just to keep your head down ahead of July 1 and the Party Congress,” said Andy Mok, managing director for Beijing-based internet consultancy Red Pagoda Resources, referring to a leadership reshuffle later this year. “It could be that Tencent sees this as an internal strategic move to strengthen its dominance in gaming, finance, and it also creates a symbolic meaning of leadership,” he said, calling Ma’s effort “a bold move.” 

Ma’s emergence into the spotlight is highly unusual for a Chinese entrepreneur who shuns media appearances and interviews. He graces at most a couple high-profile events a year, at which he consistently refrains from extensive public pronouncements. It reflects how a new generation of Chinese tech tycoons are fast becoming de-facto ambassadors for their country. Jack Ma is among the most assured of his cohort, jetting around the world to plug his vision of helping small businesses thrive.

More at Bloomberg. Andy Mok 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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PBOC promises for fintech and startups - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Business analyst Andy Mok has nine take-away's from this months central bank's press conference. Fintech and startups got priority from the government, he writes in CGTN, and they prepare for global expansion. But domesticallly virtual currencies and digital payment systems are kept under control to avoid capital flight.

Andy Mok:

Moreover, virtual currencies, third party payment systems and wealth management products all have important potential and actual linkages with each other that impact on existing policies and regulations.

With the scale of China’s market and financial assets and the speed with which business is undertaken online, both market participants and policy makers should examine these intersections for opportunities and risks. 

For example, there are now a number of crowdfunding and online lending apps that allow middle-class Chinese investors to pool their money to buy property overseas. While the ceiling of 50,000 US dollars per year on how much an individual Chinese person can take out of the country may appear to be a meaningful constraint, 10 million Chinese investors equals 500 billion US dollars in outbound investment. Given the middle class in China now exceeds 400 million, small changes in their financial behavior can have real consequences. 

Their actions can have a meaningful macro-level impact and the speed at which their behavior changes, such as taking up online transactions, means that more PBOC attention and resources will be devoted to areas such as this.

Finally, “inclusive finance” will target not only the poor and people who don’t have bank accounts (or hardly use the banking system) in China but will also impact on the poor across the world. As initiatives such as the Belt and Road gain further momentum, China will take a much larger role in bringing the rest of the world's unbanked into the digital era. Startups ready and able to develop “multi-local” inclusive finance products and services will have a powerful PBOC wind behind them.

More at CGTN.

Andy Mok 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.  

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Is there room for paid internet platforms? - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

More Chinese internet users are looking for good answers and are willing to pay for it. Paid Q&A apps emerge in China and business consulent Andy Mok discusses at CGTN America their business models and their chances to succeed.

Andy Mok 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 e-commerce experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

China´s move to a cashless society - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Almost all Chinese consumers use their mobile phone to pay, most overwhelmingly by Alipay. Fintech expert Andy Mok discusses at CCTV the implications. The technology is in place, but the regulators are still slowing the implementation, he says. Regulation by the government is unavoidable, but in a way that serves the consumers. Also participating: Duncan Clark.

Andy Mok 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.

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Drones open e-commerce for 600 million customers - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

JD.com, Alibaba´s largest competitor at e-commerce, has started to deploy drones to bring parcels to the country side. It opens a market to potentially 600 million rural customers for e-commerce, tells business analyst Andy Mok at AP. A market that was up to a short while ago, hard to reach. (starts at 2:40, after some Chinese)

Andy Mok 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 e-commerce at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list. 

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Why many Chinese fell in love with Donald Trump - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

A huge part of China fell for the charms of Donald Trump, and it is not only because of the excellent Mandarin of his granddaughter, says China veteran Andy Mok to SBS. He seemless fits many Chinese aspirations.

SBS:

Andy Mok, a Beijing-based US-Sino relations commentator noted that part of the video's popularity sprung from Trump’s own personal appeal. 

“Trump is a natural for China in several ways. He’s rich, he’s a celebrity, he’s got a larger than life personality. Chinese people find that irresistible.”

More at SBS.

Andy Mok 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 Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

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Tencent´s cannibalistic culture - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

Tencent’s culture is like a shark womb, tells innovation expert Andy Mok to Bloomberg. Since the internet giant became China´s largest company in market cap, interest in what makes the company tick has been growing.

Bloomberg:

Success inside China’s most-valuable public company sometimes requires a bit of cannibalization. 

Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s ubiquitous WeChat service emerged after founder Ma Huateng encouraged employees to compete against each other to create a mobile messaging business. WeChat now has more than 805 million users, who turn to the service not just for texting but also for playing games, paying bills and buying money-market funds. 

That blockbuster helped propel Tencent’s growth into the biggest publicly traded company in China with a market value of HK$1.97 trillion ($257 billion). Ma now wants to repeat that success as Tencent moves into live-streaming video, letting at least six divisions compete for eyeballs in a market expected to mushroom nine-fold in value to almost $13 billion by decade’s end. 

“Tencent’s culture is like a shark womb,” said Andy Mok, managing director for recruiter Red Pagoda Resources in Beijing, referring to how some unborn sharks cannibalize siblings in the womb to ensure their own survival. “It’s not as deadly, but it makes every member adapt faster and be more competitive,” he said.

More in Bloomberg.

Andy Mok 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.

Earlier this year we discussed Tencent with William Bao Bean

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One-Belt, One-Road changes China´s position in the world - Andy Mok

Andy Mok

The aspirations of president Xi Jinping to expand into the world with his One-Belt, One-Road (OBOR) initiative can only be compared with president John F. Kennedy´s plan to put a man on the moon, tells VC Andy Mok. His grand and ambitious goal includes 70% of the world´s economy and turns China´s traditional focus from the US to Europe, Russia and Iran.

Andy Mok 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 China´s outbound investments? Do check out this list.