IT-giants replace real estate tycoons in policy building - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

A strong shift from real estate tycoons to IT-giants marks a shift at China's economy in the ongoing political meetings in Beijing, says author Shaun Rein of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order to the South China Morning Post. "China is picking five to 10 private technology companies to make them national champions."

The South China Morning Post:

Technology is already a major contributor to China’s economy, underscored by the dominance of internet-based businesses and online advertising. China accounts for US$1 out of every US$4 dollar generated globally across application stores, according to analytics company AppAnnie, with Chinese app users spending more than 200 billion hours in apps in the fourth quarter of 2017, more than 4.5 times more than the next largest market India, and way ahead of the US in third place. 

“China is picking five to 10 private technology companies to make them national champions, while also giving them the roles that were formerly assigned to state companies, including the collection of information, big data sharing, and censorship,” said Shaun Rein, the managing director of Shanghai-based market intelligence company China Market Research and author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order. 

More than 20 property tycoons have dropped out as delegates to China’s legislative and consultative conference this year. 

Among them are Hu Baosen, chairman of construction firm Jianye Group, Longfor Properties’ chairman Wu Yajun, Yuexiu Group’s chairman Zhang Zhaoxing, New World Development’s chairman Henry Cheng Kar-shun, Shui On Group’s chairman Henry Lo Hong-sui, and Fosun Group’s chairman Guo Guangchang, whose conglomerate includes a property business.

More at the South China Morning 

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Xi Jinping still has to deliver on reforms - Victor Shih

Victor Shih

Much of the first five years of president Xi Jinping's rule saw many promises on financial and economic reforms. But he fell short on delivering on those promises, says financial and political analyst Victor Shih to Quartz.

Quartz:

[W]hile Xi has paid market reforms plenty of lip service, he has yet to deliver on them, as noted by Victor Shih, a professor of political economy at the University of California-San Diego. “From everything we’ve seen, despite his rhetoric about reform and opening, Xi Jinping heavily favors a strong state sector,” says Shih. That raises another possibility: Perhaps China’s chief economic woes stem from Xi’s having too much power, rather than too little. 

“Whatever biases he has will continue to be reflected in the Chinese government’s policies for the duration of his tenure, which now will likely stretch well into the next decade,” says Shih. 

Xi has some good biases—for instance, his seeming commitment to cleaning up air pollution in northern China. But he also has a bias toward heavy state intervention into the economy, as is evident in his efforts to fix problems like dangerous debt levels and deflationary overcapacity—the latter via much-touted “supply-side reform.” During Xi’s tenure, the government took action to control the stock market, bond market, and foreign exchange markets, as well as the supply of coal, steel, and cement, Shih points out.

More in Quartz.

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Fewer rich show up at China's legislature - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

Coming weeks China's lawmakers will flood Beijing for the country's annual two legislative conferences. Favorite past time or media: counting the rich. Although China gets weekly four new billionaires, both conference will see fewer rich, although their average wealth went up, says Rupert Hoogewerf or Hurun who just released the 2018 Global Rich list, to AP.

AP:

Xi [Jinping] is set to begin a second-five year term as president at the parliament's meeting starting March 5. NPC delegates are expected to approve the Communist Party's plan to remove presidential term limits, giving Xi, who has taken control of an unusually wide range of political and economic tasks, even more power. 

Hoogewerf said while the ranks of superrich lawmakers have thinned out, he hasn't seen anything to indicate Chinese entrepreneurs are "losing confidence in the business environment." 

Delegates are chosen every five years, most recently this year. High turnover between last year's group and the new NPC attendees is one big reason for the ranking's changes, said Hoogewerf. He added that delegates don't have nearly the same power that members of Congress or senators have in other legislatures. 

Heading the list is Pony Ma Huateng, CEO of internet giant Tencent Holdings, operator of China's ubiquitous WeChat/Weixin chat app, with a net worth of $47 billion.

More at AP.

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What is the purpose of US' trade actions? - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

Most observers of the recent trade actions by the US have been left behind flabbergasted, says leading economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® to CNN. While the rhetoric is firmly anti-Chinese, most damage is done to other countries than China. Although that could change, he adds.

CNN:

The bigger concern for China is whether Trump will soon come out with other measures that target it more heavily and directly. That could result from an investigation into Chinese efforts to get hold of U.S. intellectual property that was launched last year by Trump's trade czar, Robert Lighthizer. 

"Behind the scenes, the U.S. administration appears to be preparing a more focused campaign directed against China," said Arthur Kroeber, a founding partner at economic research firm Gavekal. 

If Trump comes down harder on Beijing by slapping tariffs on a broad range of China's exports and clamping down aggressively on Chinese investment in the U.S., President Xi Jinping will fire back, experts say... 

Trump's argument that the steel and aluminum tariffs are justified on grounds of national security may have given Chinese leaders another avenue of attack. 

"By using a national security justification for protection that obviously serves no real national security purpose, Trump opens the door for other countries -- notably China -- to use the same justification to protect their own industries," Kroeber wrote in a note to clients. 

Trump's latest move also helps China deflect widespread criticism of its own trade practices, which include subsidizing key industries, dumping excess production of a product such as steel on global markets and shutting out foreign companies and investors from huge swathes of its economy. 

"Although Trump and his trade advisers consistently claim that China is the main villain in international trade, these tariffs make it far harder to organize resistance to Chinese bad behavior," Kroeber said. 

The metal tariffs could end up doing the most harm to U.S. allies like South Korea, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Brazil. 

Most of those governments "would have been quite happy to join in U.S.-led efforts to restrain Chinese mercantilism and fight for greater market access in that highly protected economy," Kroeber wrote. "Now they will be inclined to wonder whether it is really China or the U.S. that poses the greater threat to the world trading system."

More at CNN.

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The Shanghai rules for self-driving cars - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

After Beijing Shanghai has become the second city in the race to regulate self-driving cars. Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub compared both regulations and draws from the differences some conclusions for Shanghai, he writes on the China Law Insight.

Mark Schaub:

Hot on the heels of Beijing, Shanghai has become the second city in China to issue road testing regulations for self-driving cars. This is another important momentum for the development of autonomous cars in China following Beijing’s road testing regulations (“Beijing Regulations”) issued late last year. The Shanghai Regulations use the term “intelligent and connected vehicle” (ICV) for self-driving cars. The self-driving cars governed by the Shanghai Regulations cover L3, L4 and L5 vehicles. 

Although the Shanghai Regulations are largely similar to the Beijing Regulations there are some notable differences... 

The release of the Shanghai Regulations is another concrete step in China’s regulating of road testing for self-driving cars. Their release also shows local authorities are seeking to provide sound policy environment to allow for self-driving cars to develop in China. National rules for self-driving car road testing are expected to be released in the near future. 

Unlike the Beijing Regulations, the Shanghai Regulations are valid for 22 months i.e. until 31 December 2019. From this time frame it appears the Shanghai government intends to regulate the self-driving car road testing in a dynamic fashion. 

The Auto industry is a key pillar of Shanghai’s economy. In 2017, the gross industrial output of Shanghai auto industry was RMB 677.4 billion with a year-on-year growth rate of 19.1%. If local governments will support the development of self-driving cars then it can be expected that Shanghai will lead the way. 

On 1 March 2018, SAIC Motor and Nio were the first two carmakers to obtain temporary car plates for test vehicles under the Shanghai Regulations. We expect more carmakers and technology companies will join them on Shanghai’s roads.

More details in the China Law Insight.

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The political dimensions of foreign investments – Harry Broadman

Harry Broadman

Chinese investments into the US have increasingly gotten into the crosshairs of the CFIUS, the organization checking foreign investments into the US for security risks. Private equity investor and former CFIUS employee Harry Broadman tried to shed some light on this often murky process, and its political dimensions for Forbes.

Harry Broadman:

Notwithstanding my own experience, it should be abundantly clear from CFIUS’ public track record over all these years, that like other countries’ inbound investment decision-making calculus, the organization hardly operates in a domestic political vacuum. It may—though not always—be subject to various pressures both within the Executive Branch as well as from Capitol Hill. 

While one might wish that not to be the case, that is the universal reality. This make all the more surprising the sometimes-sheer naiveté of potential foreign investors pursuing deals in the U.S.—not to mention that of the advisors inside the U.S. from which they seek counsel—about how to structure a strategy to deal with the CFIUS process. 

The truth is that every economy in the world has a policy regime specifying in varying degrees the regulation of inflows of FDI. In statutory terms, the restrictiveness of U.S. regulation of FDI is about average for the 62 countries routinely assessed by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—the group of the world’s wealthiest countries. (The OECD’s assessment includes all of its 35-member countries, all the G20 countries, and a number of other countries that are less wealthy.) Moreover, as a matter of practice, there are exemptions granted by the U.S. from these formal regulations, particularly at the state level. 

That CFIUS decisions blocking or demanding the restructuring of inbound transactions—which are actually few in number—may be subject to political pressures, sometimes based on quite spurious reasons, as politicians the world over are wont to do, overall, U.S. regulatory constraints on inbound FDI are effectively benign. 

The most compelling proof of this are official data that the U.S. is the world’s largest recipient of FDI flows in absolute terms, and it has been so ever since 2006 (except for the brief 2010-2014 period, when comparable inflows to China were slightly larger). Some professional services firms like to cite their surveys of foreign business executives’ perceptions of the U.S. investment climate and aspirations for prospective transactions here—for which the U.S. is often ranked highest in the world—as evidence of the country’s hospitable environment. While such findings may be heart-warming, these measures are not data-driven. Their economic meaningfulness is not robust nor can they be used to make systematic cross-country comparisons. Perception indices are ‘old-school’. In a nutshell, they do not reflect investment decisions actually undertaken, which really is the only meaningful basis on which a country’s policy stance can be assessed and on which policy reforms should be formulated. 

Some readers will be surprised to learn that today U.S. inflows of FDI are the highest in the world, believing that China surely would have been a larger recipient. In 2016, China’s inflows of FDI were US$171 billion, while those of the U.S. were US$468 billion, about 2¾ times greater. It is true that China does take in a huge amount of foreign direct investment; it’s of course the largest nation in the world. Taking into account the relative sizes of countries would thus make sense in making such judgments. On this basis, FDI inflows in 2016 for China were US$97 per capita; for the U.S. they were US$1193 per capita. It is also the case that annual flows of FDI for any country can fluctuate greatly, especially for a year when one-time, large foreign acquisitions of domestic firms take place. For these reasons, cross-country comparisons are best made on the basis of cumulative inflows—or the ‘stock’—of FDI. In this context, as of year-end 2016, the stock of FDI per capita in the U.S. was US$19,491; in China it was $980.

The full story in Forbes, here republished with the kind permission of the author.

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How Alibaba and Tencent retail strategies differ - Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan

China is leading the way in digitalizing the consumer experience in retail, but both major competitors - Alibaba and Tencent - have different retail strategies, says WeChat expert Matthew Brennan to the News Lens. Alibaba focuses on the offline experience, Tencent's WeChat will stay online. In 2018 the battle will be on mobile payment, he adds.

The News Lens:

Matthew Brennan, founder of China Channel, a consultancy on China's digital market, said that the trend is apparent across all consumer-facing industries. "China is leading the rest of the world in terms of digitalizing the customer experience and blending this experience seamlessly between offline and online elements," Brennan said. According to Brennan, retailers are moving back to offline as online growth matures – being a purely online play will no longer sustain the rapid growth that Alibaba and Tencent are used to. 

Tencent’s payment service, WeChat Pay, already has about 800 million users in China, and together with Alibaba's Alipay, the pair dominate China’s massive mobile payment space. The majority of retailers here, from supermarkets to street vendors, now accept either or both forms of payment. As such, the latest official data showed mobile payments reached 81 trillion yuan in the first 10 months of last year, up 40 percent on the whole of 2016. While Tencent has its fingers in many pies, it is not a direct retailer, and instead relies on a partnership with e-commerce major JD.com in place since 2014 to drive sales through WeChat Pay. 

The two companies announced in October that they would expand the cooperation via the launch of the JD-Tencent Retail Marketing Solution, which according to a press release promises to “integrate insights on consumer behavior from Tencent’s social platforms with online and offline shopping data from JD and its brand partners.” Pushing into unmanned stores is thus a natural next step for Tencent as it attempts to remain relevant in "new retail" while building on its existing strength in the mobile payments market. 

"WeChat does not have ambitions to open its own stores across China, Tencent's strategy is to partner with existing retail players and help digitalize the retail experience," Brennan explained. "Both [Alibaba] and Tencent are now moving into a wide variety of vertical industries for a variety of reasons, retail though is the most important battleground for 2018. “In the short term, new retail is in large part about mobile payments. Tencent and Alibaba are blocking each other's moves to protect their market share in payments."

More in the News Lens.

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China's billionaires: moving up in the 2018 Global Rich List - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

Americans still dominate the 2018 Global Rich List, but with four new billionaires a week, China is moving up very fast, says Hurun Rich List chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf at the release of the annual overview. Tencent's CEO Pony Ma is now the highest listed Chinese billionaire at no.15, beating Xu Jiayin of Evergrande and Jack Ma of Alibaba this year.

The Hurun Rich List:

The Hurun Global Rich List 2018 ranked 2,694 billionaires from 68 countries and from 2,157 companies in another record-breaking year for the world’s billionaires. 

Total wealth increased by a staggering 31% to US$10.5 trillion, equivalent to 13.2% of global GDP, and almost double the 7% of global GDP six years ago. Rupert Hoogewerf said, “Never has so much wealth been concentrated in the hands of so few.” 

It has been an outstanding year for billionaires: 1508 saw their wealth increase and there were 567 new faces. 

Chinese billionaires are pulling away from the USA for the third year running, 819 compared with 571.  Just two years ago, they were neck and neck at 534 and 535. Hoogewerf said, “China is going through an amazing period of entrepreneurship, adding 210 billionaires in the past year.” 

It has been a good year for India, claiming back its third place after adding 31 billionaires, on the back of a record performance of the Indian stock markets. 

The average lister is aged 63, one year younger than last year. 

Rupert Hoogewerf says, “The world today has the best part of 6,000 dollar billionaires, assuming that for every one we found, we have probably at least one if not more, particularly from the Gulf states.” 

Hoogewerf continues, “A boom in China, a weak dollar and a 26% hike in Nasdaq have led to a surge in dollar billionaires across the world. The US dollar depreciated 16% against the Euro, 12% against the British Pound, 10% against the Chinese Yuan and 6% against the Indian Rupee. Global economic growth was at 3% last year, the fastest rate since 2011 and a significant acceleration compared with 2.4% the previous year.”

More at official the Hurun Rich List.

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Xi Jinping: looking for stability - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

The proposal by President Xi Jinping to scrap the two-term limitation for his position as president has generated little opposition, not domestically or internationally. A logical step in moving to more stability, comments author Zhang Lijia "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China at the Wikitribune. And nobody wants to tock the China boat.

The Wikitribune:

There’s little the West can do to stop China from instituting autocratic measures within the country, according to Lijia Zhang, a Beijing-based social commentator and author of “Socialism is Great!” A Worker’s Memoir of the New China. “I am not sure what other governments can do,” she told WikiTribune via email. 

“China is playing an increasingly important role in the world. People wouldn’t want to upset the regime, or deal with a huge chaotic country with 1.3 billion population.”... 

The proposal comes at a point when the Chinese president “has amassed [a] huge amount of power since taking his position and become the most powerful leader after Chairman Mao,” says Zhang. “He feels that he needs to be in total charge in order to realize his vision: to fight corruption, reduce poverty, upgrading its economy, see through his ‘one belt, one road’ initiative and restore China’s former glory.”

More at the Wikitribune.

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Why do Chinese companies love Brazil? - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Chinese insurance and investment conglomerate Fosun International snapped up Brazilian asset manager Guide Investimentos for US$52 million on Tuesday, reversing a trend of disinvestment after the central government came after conglomerates with excessive outbound investments. Shaun Rein, author of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, explains in the South China Morning Post why Brazil is such a popular destination.

The South China Morning Post:

“Fosun is regaining pace – it seems like a signal that political pressure is easing for the company,” said Shaun Rein, the managing director of Shanghai-based market intelligence company China Market Research and author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order. 

“Brazil is attractive given its market size and population. The asset prices are also attractive there, compared with those in Southeast Asia, which gained a lot of investment from China last year,” he said. 

Tuesday’s deal is the second acquisition of a Brazilian financial institution by Fosun. In July 2016, the group bought Brazilian fund manager Rio Bravo Investimentos, its first acquisition in Latin America.

More at the South China Morning Post.

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HK audit regulations go downhill to attract US business - Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis

Many Chinese companies took a listing at US exchanges because audits in Hong Kong and on mainland exchanges were stricter. The HK stock market now is watering down regulations for audits, notes Beida accounting professor Paul Gillis on his website to his shock, to pull back those Chinese companies from the US.

Paul Gillis:

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) has issued its latest proposal to weaken corporate governance standards in order to attract Chinese listings that have gone to the US. The US has won most of the listings of China's privately held companies, including bellwethers Alibaba, Baidu and Sina. There are several reasons for that, including the fact that the US permits weaker governance than Hong Kong or China, and that fees for investment bankers are considerably higher with US listings. The weaker governance rules led to the NYSE winning the Alibaba listing over the HKSE. Hong Kong faced the possibility it would not win another major IPO from China because most Chinese founders want a controlling vote, even when they no longer hold a majority of the shares. 

Much to the consternation of corporate governance advocates, Hong Kong proposes allowing control structures (called weighted voting rights - WVR).   Shareholder advocates in the US have opposed the proliferation of these structures in technology companies. Hong Kong is also proposing to relax other listing standards related to profitability. 

The proposed rules essentially allow unicorns to list in Hong Kong with control structures. More flexible rules are proposed for biotech issuers. 

In addition, the path is being cleared to allow overseas listed companies to seek secondary or main listings in Hong Kong after two years of compliance on a foreign exchange. 

Restrictions apply to prevent regulatory arbitrage, where a company lists overseas first in an attempt to circumvent tougher Hong Kong listing standards.

More at the Chinacountingblog.

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Xi's move: good news for investors - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

President Xi Jinping is likely to extend his tenure beyond two terms, by changing the constitution. That is basically good news for investors, tells the economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® to Bloomberg. Although in the long run, there might be some caveats.

Bloomberg:

Further centralizing power under Xi is broadly positive from an investor standpoint, said Arthur Kroeber, founding partner at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing. But the longer-term risk is that “this lack of accountability, this lack of checks, could lead to a deterioration in the quality of decision-making at the top,” he said. 

While the proposal wasn’t entirely surprising, it marks a formal break from the party’s succession practices and tradition of collective leadership. Sunday’s announcement comes a week before the National People’s Congress, when a series of constitutional changes cementing Xi’s influence are likely to be approved.

More at Bloomberg.

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Local debts keep rising, but will not cause financial crises - Victor Shih

Victor Shih

China faces a financial dilemma, as it wants economic growth, and forces local governments to borrow more money, against the wishes of the central government, says financial and political analyst Victor Shih in the CeMEAS Conversations on China's economic future. But external threats to the country's stability do exist, he adds.

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Tencent: retaining employees - Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan

Handing out hongbao's when staff returns from Spring festival is one way how Chinese companies retain staff. WeChat expert Matthew Brennan joined Tencent's CEO Tony Ma handing out hongbao's last Friday in Shenzhen to some of this 43,000 employees, he reports on his LinkedIn page.

Matthew Brennan:

[Friday] saw one of #Tencent's most famous company traditions. Every year since the company was founded in 1999 the CEO Pony Ma and other managers have welcomed back staff to work after the Chinese New Year holiday by handing out red envelopes filled with cash to every member of staff. Tencent now has over 43,000 staff some of which queued from 3 AM in the morning at the #Shenzhen HQ to be the first in line to pick up multiple red envelopes both physical and digital from management. With such a company tradition is it any wonder that the #WeChat team was inspired to digitalize the red envelopes tradition which ended up being the key to making #WeChatPay such a huge success.

CEO Tony Ma hands out hongbao's

More information (and very different opinions) at Matthew Brennan's LinkedIn page.

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Anbang's takeover not a surprise - Victor Shih

Victor Shih

The decision by China's insurance supervisor (CIRC) to take over Anbang, did not come as a surprise, says financial analyst Victor Shih to the Washington Post. The move will “inject a dose of confidence,” he added.

The Washington Post:

Though the political implications of his ouster are still unclear, analysts see the move as a way to shore up confidence in the company and signal tighter regulation to come. 

“The China Insurance Regulatory Commission’s stewardship is not totally surprising because Anbang Life still has millions of policies outstanding and may face liquidity problems if policyholders defected en masse,” said Victor Shih, an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. The move will “inject a dose of confidence,” he added.

More at the Washington Post.

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Blockchain: key for cybersecurity at self-driving cars - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

Self-driving cars are going to change our life beyond recognition. But there is a lot of work to be done on cybersecurity to let them drive safely, says Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub at the China Law Insight.  a sector in which major car manufacturers such as Audi, Daimler, Toyota, BMW, Nissan, Volvo rub shoulders with new electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla and are also vying with established tech giants such as Google, Baidu, Apple, Samsung, Tencent and competing with new tech such as ride-hailing companies such as Didi and Uber?

China Law Insight:

[T]he use of blockchain technology in autonomous cars will raise novel legal questions which are yet to be answered. One major legal issue will be assigning responsibility for glitches or other technical errors. As all distributed ledger technologies are decentralized there will be no single centralized body that maintains the network. 

In micro-payment situations the circumstance could arise where an autonomous vehicle charges its battery but is over- or under-charged for electricity. In this case it will be unclear whether the responsible party is the autonomous vehicle manufacturer or the charging station. Indeed, in situations where glitches occur due to errors in the distributed ledger technology itself, as opposed to participating people or devices, it is unclear whether the original developer itself may be liable. 

Another legal minefield for blockchain will be in respect of data privacy. Regulations may require drivers and/or passengers be given the option to customize which data is transmitted to the data marketplace and which is masked, particularly in case of shared autonomous vehicles which have large numbers of passengers who will have different privacy preferences. 

There is no doubt that blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have much to offer for the development of autonomous vehicles. Blockchain will enhance user experience, reduce inefficiencies in electricity transmission and reduce the high rate of private car ownership through promoting car sharing. 

Blockchain has the potential to fundamentally change:

• the way autonomous vehicle data is collected, stored and transacted, by incentivizing it, securing privacy and immutability,
• the way car sharing solutions are operating, by offering solutions for intermediary-free ride hailing, car sharing, carpooling, leasing services,
• the way payments and micro-transactions systems are designed, through usage of smart contracts and trustless transactions,
• will affect the way car insurance products are designed, allowing innovative insurance products, bringing, efficiency, transparency and speed into the car insurance process,
• the methods that information and history of a car is stored, enabling a transparent database that could give an elaborate account on any given car.

A wide range of blockchain and non-blockchain powered platforms, think tanks and research institutes have proposed platforms to address a number of needs in this space (a sample list is provided below). However, despite this rapid development, it must be remembered that there remain potential flaws with the underlying technology as well as unanswered legal issues regarding privacy and liability for technical errors. These issues will need to be addressed before the technology is implemented in a mass market manner.

More at the China Law Insight

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Crackdown on corruption has some side-effects - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

While President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption is lauded by most, the campaign has some negative side-effects, says author Shaun Rein of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order in the South China Morning Post. Officials have become increasingly afraid to make larger decision because they fear a possible backlash, he says.

The South China Morning Post:

Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research and author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, said Beijing’s crackdown was having a largely positive effect, albeit with two consequences. 

“Government officials are scared of green lighting bigger projects so business transactions have slowed,” he said. 

“Officials are scared of getting fingered for being corrupt so it is easier to keep their heads down and not approve anything.” 

“[And] in general the speed of business is slowing because of the bureaucracy and policies being implemented. For example, before one could bribe an official to get approvals for a real estate project. Now they have to follow a transparent bidding and approval system.” 

But it is not so much the catching of officials – Chinese or elsewhere – that frustrated Transparency International’s Salas, who called for better press freedom to cover and examine corruption cases. 

“Each country is different, so for example China has to do more beyond punishing some individuals,” he said. 

“It has to allow journalists and activists to raise their voices, while the US has to urgently control the money that flows to politics from big businesses, and so on.”

More in the South China Morning Post.

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

The pros and cons of China's market economy for women - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

China's market economy has brought pros and cons to the women, says author Zhang Lijia of the bestseller Lotus: A Novel, on prostitution in China, to the BBC.“I think women have shouldered most of the cost and burden during the transition from a planned economy to the market economy,” she says. She is currently working on a book on the left-behind children in China.

The BBC:

One critic of the reforms, social commentator and author Zhang Lijia, says that China’s shift from a planned economy to a market economy model has brought changes and opportunities for both men and women – particularly urban and educated women. But it has also brought setbacks, including job losses. 

“I think women have shouldered most of the cost and burden during the transition from a planned economy to the market economy,” she says. “For example, [in] ailing state-owned enterprises, women are always [the] first to be let off.” 

Zhang has personal experience of the changes that she wrote about it in her book, Socialism is Great. Growing up in Nanjing, the capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, she started working at a missile factory at the age of 16. The village she lived in served as a residential area for a local machinery factory, which was run by the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. 

“They had a rule that women [of] about 45 years old were let off from my worker unit,” she says, suggesting that this was a blanket rule in place at the factory. 

She thinks the shift to the market economy has allowed more businesses to get away with unscrupulous practices towards female workers in China. “Before, there was this kind of Maoist-style gender equality. Now it’s being replaced by open sexism,” she says. 

Zhang goes on to say that “it’s just so much harder to get jobs because they make extra demands… some companies will refuse to hire women of child-bearing age. And sometimes if a woman gets pregnant, they will sack them. Sometimes they will force women to write that ‘in the next ten years I promise I will not have children.’” 

Recent figures show that women in China’s cities now earn 67.3% of what men make. Meanwhile, for women in the countryside, it’s even less at 56%.

More at the BBC.

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

My mission as a bridge builder - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo

China veteran and rock star Kaiser Kuo addresses the Confucius Institute at the Webster University at the start of the Year of the dog to talk about his mission as a bridge builder between China and the US. "I figured out what I wanted to do, and my job has been building bridges."

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 experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

My nostalgic view on Spring Festival - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Much of China and many Chinese have become wealthy. But just a few decades ago, remembers author Zhang Lijia of "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China Spring Festival was the only moment in the year where food was abundant. At her website, she looks with a nostalgic view at those poorer times.

Zhang Lijia:

Happiness glistened on our front door. Printed in gold on red shiny paper, the large character ‘fu’, meaning happiness or good fortune, shows a person knelt before an altar, prying for happiness. The character was stuck upside down, fu dao, in word-playing tradition to ensure that fu would arrive – dao – at our home. Behind the door, our whole family, dressed in our best outfits, gathered for the annual reunion dinner. Mine was a new cover, made of floral patterned cotton, for my padded Chinese jacket, and a pair of leather shoes instead of padded cotton slippers. 

In keeping with tradition, Nai first brought in a fish cooked in soy sauce and announced: “We have fish every year,” then put it aside for later consumption. In Chinese, yu, or fish, sounds like the character for surplus or abundance. In such wordplay lie hopes for a prosperous year ahead. 

At Ma’s insistence, Nai sat opposite the door, in the seat reserved for the most honourable person. Ordinarily she didn’t even sit at the table but ate her tiny portion in the kitchen, like a servant. Ma then stood up, raising a little porcelain cup with teardrops engraved around the edge. “A lot has happened this year. I retired, Little Li took over my job and I am trying to get another one.” 

“Yes, go for the Confucius Temple job,” cut in my father who had rushed back for the festival. “Deng Xiaoping said, ‘whether white or black, a cat is a good cat so long as it catches the rat.’ I say a job is a good job so long as it pays.” Pleased with his remarks, he voiced them loud enough for the whole building to hear. 

Ignoring her husband, Ma continued her speech. “‘Sesame stalks put forth flowers notch by notch’. I wish our lives will get better and better. Cheers!” 

Our cups and glasses clinked in the air. I drank tea since I was allergic to alcohol while everyone else downed a type of white liquor, the firewater that soon turned their faces red. Even my brother Xiaoshi was helping himself. He was tall for his age, but painfully skinny, as if forgetting to grow horizontally. Some of his naughty friends were already whistling for him outside our window. It was Nai who made him sit down and eat. 

“Eat, eat, I have loads more,” Nai urged, with an ear-to-ear smile that revealed her deep dimples. 

With plenty of materials to work with, Nai and Ma had cooked the best New Year banquet for years: chicken soup; sweet and sour fish shaped like a squirrel; a ‘lucky reunion’ stew in a clay pot; stir-fired green vegetables; and Nai’s specialty, the ‘lion’s head’ – a dish of minced meatballs. Food is always the thread that binds Chinese families close together. As our appetites rose with the steam, our chopsticks seized their targets with speed and precision. Spring Festival was the only time we could enjoy food without limit.

More at Zhang Lijia's website.

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 stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.
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