How China's electrification strategy fought off the fuel crisis – Kaiser Kuo

 

Kaiser Kuo

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.

Kaiser Kuo 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 strategic experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

The myth of the AI race – Alvin Wang Graylin

 

Alvin Wang Graylin

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.

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.

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

Why Chinese lost their trust in the US – Zhang Lijia

 

Zhang Lijia

 

In China, many citizens looked with admiration at the US, but those days are certainly over, says London-based journalist Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel, in an opinion piece at the South China Morning Post. Trump forced educated Chinese to rethink long-held assumptions about democracy, modernity, and the direction of history itself, she argues.

Zhang Lijia:

However, admiration has become more qualified. The US is increasingly seen not as a political role model but as a complex society grappling with many of the same challenges facing other countries: inequality, social division, political polarisation and diminishing trust in institutions. Trump became an unlikely catalyst for this shift.

The US remains powerful and influential, yet the country many educated Chinese once imagined from afar is now viewed less idealistically. More than any other recent American leader, Trump accelerated this transformation, narrowing a psychological distance that had existed for decades.

For many educated Chinese, the US no longer appears as the destination towards which all modern societies naturally evolve. Trump did not merely change the way Chinese people viewed America, he also forced them to rethink long-held assumptions about democracy, modernity and the direction of history itself.

More at 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 political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Deepseek vs Gemini – Ashley Dudarenok

 

Ashley Dudarenok

Innovation expert Ashley Dudarenok looks at her website ChoZan into the differences between the two leading AI companies, Deepseek and Gemini. In detail, she examines where both companies work best, as they differ profoundly.

Ashley Dudarenok:

At a surface level, both models aim to compete at the frontier of AI capability. The difference shows up in how they are built and where they are meant to win.

DeepSeek stems from a Chinese engineering mindset that prioritizes efficiency and scalability in deployment. Teams behind it have roots in quantitative finance and high-performance computing. That influence shows in how aggressively they optimize for cost and inference efficiency.

Gemini, developed by Google, prioritizes differently. It is designed as a deeply integrated intelligence layer across products like Google Search, Gmail, and Google Workspace. The goal is not just performance but ecosystem dominance.

This creates a practical divide. DeepSeek vs. Gemini is not a purely model-based comparison. It is a comparison between an efficiency-first challenger and an ecosystem-first incumbent. A similar divide appears in DeepSeek vs ChatGPT when deployment model and control are compared directly.

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 Trump played poker in Beijing, where the game was Pokemon – Victor Shih

 

Victor Shih

Political analyst Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy,  looks at the Trump state visit in Beijing. While Trump was losing his poker game, he should have been playing Pokémon, he explains in the Wire China.

Victor Shih:

It is not entirely wrong to think of Great Power politics as a card game, as Trump at times does. However, it is not a poker game, where hands are dealt randomly, and players both try to read the cards held by other players and, at times, bluff their way to victory.

The card game of geopolitics is in fact more akin to the Pokemon card game, where players still need to guess or collect intelligence on a competitor’s hand, but have much more discretion than in poker to expend resources and make tradeoffs in order to build the best position they can relative to their competitors.

The evidence on display in Beijing last week was that China has done this expertly — while the Trump administration still needs to realize that they are not even playing the right card game.

More at the Wire China.

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.

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

How China won the Trump visit in Beijing – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

Business analyst Shaun Rein looks back at the Trump visit in Beijing and explains why China has been the winner of this historic get-together, he tells George Galloway. He explains why China will never buy US technology anymore

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.

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

Trump has no credibility in Beijing – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein explains at CNBC why we cannot expect too much from the ongoing meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Trump has no credibility at all in Beijing, he says.

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.

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

US-China balance on the edge – Kaiser Kuo

 

Kaiser Kuo (right)

China veteran and Sinica podcast host Kaiser Kuo discusses at the Asia Society in Hong Kong the balance in the relationship between China and the US. Ying Chan interviews him.

 Kaiser Kuo 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.

How can the Iran war impact China – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein looks at the impact the Iran war might have on China if the hostilities go on for two months or more. The fallout might last for years to come, not only for the US but also for China, he tells OAN.

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.

Are you looking for more experts to manage your China risk at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

How a US financial crisis can make China the largest economy – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order,  dives into the upheaval in the Middle East and explains how a possible US financial crisis could make China the world’s largest economy, as he tells in a discussion with David Lin. Chinese feel Trump is the best thing that could happen to China, he adds.

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 list.

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

US-Iran war unlikely to derail Xi-Trump meeting – Arthur Kroeber

 

Arthur Kroeber

China protested against the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, but economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®  does not think this major upheaval will derail the planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, he says at CNBC.

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 stories by Arthur Kroeber? Do check out this list.

Why China is not focusing on the rich – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

Business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order, discusses a fundamental difference in the politics of China and the USA concerning the rich. China focuses on the 90% of the population who are not rich, while the US goes for the rich, he says at the Thinkers Forum.

Shanghai-based business analyst 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.

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

The split between China and the US is irreversible – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

The split between China and the US is irreversible, argues Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The Split: Finding the Opportunities in China’s Economy in the New World Order, in a discussion with Keith Yap on his YouTube channel. Trade with China has helped the United States, he says.

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.

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

Are the China hawks retreating in the US? – Kaiser Kuo

 

China watcher Kaiser Kuo sees now the China hawks in the US are losing ground, after Trump realized China was not the pushover he hoped for, in a wide-ranging discussion at the Nonzero podcast with Robert Wright.

Kaiser Kuo 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.

AI growth now moves from brutal force to collaboration – Alvin Wang Graylin

 

Alvin Wang Graylin

For years, the growth of AI was built on scaling up its GPUs, but innovation expert Alvin Wang Graylin, author of Our Next Reality: Preparing for the AI-powered Metaverse, sees now a move to more collaboration. Chip maker Nvidia is not the only winner anymore, as competition is growing and AI models can develop through more experience and need less capacity to grow, as China’s Deepseek proved earlier this year, he says at the Big Bang Future Lab.

Alvin Wang Graylin is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch and fill in our speakers’ request form.

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

Why nobody can win the AI race – Alvin Wang Graylin

 

Alvin Wang Graylin

Alvin Wang Graylin, author of Our Next Reality: Preparing for the AI-powered Metaverse, explains why there is no AI race any country can win. He discusses at the Thinkers Forum why the AI bubble everybody is talking about is not the right one.

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.

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

Please

How the China debate developed in the West – Kaiser Kuo

 

Kaiser Kuo

China veteran Kaiser Kuo, host of The Sinica Podcast, looks back at how the debate on China has developed in the West over the past forty to fifty years, and here it ended now, in a debate with host Eric Olander of Conversation Changers. The discussion on what China wants says more about the West than about China, he argues.

Kaiser Kuo 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 Kaiser Kuo? Do check out this list.

Why China has the upper hand in the trade war – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

Shanghai-based business analyst Shaun Rein explains why China has the upper hand in the current trade war with the US. For anything the US does not want to send to China, China has an alternative to hit back, he says at the Thinkers Forum.

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.

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