China's consumption is booming - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Business analyst Shaun Rein appeared on the "On China" show of CNN's Kristie Lu Stout, discussing China's growing consumption, Barbie and how even in a downturn China's wealthy will become wealthier. 

CNN:

One area where Western brands have some headway against their domestic Chinese competitors is product safety, in the wake of scandals over tainted baby formula, fake eggs and exploding watermelons. 

Shaun Rein said his company, China Market Research Group, interviewed 5,000 Chinese consumers in 15 cities last year. "Their biggest concern in life, ahead of being able to pay education for their kids, or for medical care cost for their families, was food and product safety," Rein said. " 

They're absolutely petrified of biting something and dying, or getting toxic shock syndrome from a toy. So what we've found is in these 5,000 consumers they trust foreign brands far more than they trust local domestic Chinese brands," Rein said. 

A dichotomy is growing in Chinese consumer trends between shopping for status and shopping for value. 

"What that means is, people don't buy mid-level brands, which is why you see (brands?) like Marks & Spencer, or Li-Ning, or Gap kind of struggle, because these are branded for middle-class consumers," Rein said. "What we see is people either shop for the most expensive things they can get, like a Louis Vuitton or Hermes bag, or they go for the cheapest."

More on CNN.

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.


 This week, on November 22, the China Weekly Hangout is about the future of nuclear power in China. You can register at our event page here. (Two weeks earlier we missed the change in daylight saving time in the US and had to cancel.) First part will focus on the resumption of building nuclear power stations, the second part of the chances NIMBY protests can derail this ambitious program. Planned participants: Richard Brubaker and Chris Brown.

You can access all editions here.

Related articles

• Hope for a more constructive second Obama term - Shaun Rein (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• How China's middle class differs from the American one - Shaun Rein (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• China says, do not push us around - Shaun Rein (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• Anti-China hysteria in the US "concerning" - Shaun Rein (chinaherald.net)

China's new openness in the post-Wikileaks era - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

China's internet might have the most elaborated filters and blocks in the world, information is freer and flowing faster than ever, tells Internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn to Jaime A. FlorCruz of CNN. As was illustrated by the case of the dismissal of Bo Xilai. 

Jaime A. FlorCruz:

News of Lin Biao's death[A Chinese leader involved in a coup in 1971], allegedly in a plane crash, took months to emerge. The "ever victorious general" was labeled a traitor, accused of fleeing China en route to Mongolia after a failed coup. 

Says Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei.com, a website and research firm that tracks the Chinese media and internet, "We know less about what really happened to Lin Biao than we do about the fall of Bo Xilai, and the Bo case isn't over yet." 

This time, the Chinese government is also trying to contain the crisis, but it has become too big to control in ways they have done before. 

"We live in the post Wikileaks age," says Goldkorn. "China is no different from the rest of the world, except that many parts of its government have always been excessively secretive.".. 

"With more than half a billion Internet users and websites like (Twitter-like) Weibo, information can spread nationwide in a few minutes," says Goldkorn. "These trends are irreversible, barring a complete shutdown of the Chinese internet, which may be possible but is very unlikely."...\ 

Notes Goldkorn: "A certain amount of negative commentary on Bo has been allowed to circulate on the internet and, according to some commentators, some of these gossip, stories and rumors about Bo actually originated from people inside the central government."

More about China's internet at CNN.

Jeremy Goldkorn 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.

Related articles

• The government balancing act on the internet - Jeremy Goldkorn(chinaherald.net)

  ---

• China's internet "freer than ever" - Jeremy Goldkorn (chinaherald.net)
• Unprecedented online chatter on Bo Xilai - Jeremy Goldkorn (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• A more subtle management of internet censorship - Jeremy Goldkorn (chinaspeakersbureau.info)
• New rules won't kill weibo - Jeremy Goldkorn (chinaherald.net)

The CNN, Christian Bale stunt: fail of journalistic integrity - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

In an amazing act of unprofessional behavior CNN took last week the British actor Christian Bale to visit Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist, hitting a world-wide audience, but leaving many wonder what the broadcasters was doing. "A complete failure of journalistic integrity," writes Shaun Rein in Forbes.  

Shaun Rein:

CNN’s China team, in a complete failure of journalistic integrity, decided last week to become the news rather than just report it. The actor Christian Bale called CNN to follow him as he drove for eight hours to confront police to try to see Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist being held in his home in the eastern Chinese village of Linyi. Bale was in China to promote his movie about the Rape of Nanking by Japanese troops in 1937. 

CNN did Bale one better. It became complicit in Bale’s activism by actually planning the trip and driving him to Linyi. CNN reporter Steven Jiang then translated for Bale as he argued with Chinese police officers and refused to comply with their directives to leave. CNN posted video of the trip on its website, calling it exclusive, showing police forcing Bale to leave while Bale chastised the government, saying its treatment of Chen ”represents the power structure and their attitude towards their own citizens, which is disgusting.”.. 

As Adam Minter, of Bloomberg in Shanghai, tweeted, “News orgs that want to maintain their credibility in China don’t set up confrontations between cops and celebrities, at celebrity request.” Minter hit the nail on the head. Journalists need to maintain objectivity and cover both sides of a problem rather than become the story by being activists. CNN’s China coverage has lost what little credibility it had with this escapade, and that is a terrible shame, for the network has often shed light on areas that needed more light.

More in Forbes.

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.

Related articles

• China's rich get richer and more confident - Shaun Rein (chinaherald.net)
• Batman star Christian Bale roughed up while trying to visit China pro-life activist (deaconjohnspace.wordpress.com)
• Batman star Christian Bale roughed up while trying to visit China pro-life activist (deaconforlife.blogspot.com)
• Christian Bale punched while trying to visit Chinese activist (telegraph.co.uk)