How to deal with WeChat blocks - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Foreign brands know they need Tencent's WeChat to sell their products to Chinese consumers, but working with WeChat mean dealing with blocks, says marketing expert Ashley Dudarenok, author of Unlocking the World's Largest E-Market: A Guide to Selling on Chinese Social Media at AshleyTalks. Not only they have to deal with official rules, also Tencent does not like links to its direct competitors like Alibaba. How to deal with them?

Ashley Dudarenok on the official WeChat rules:

WeChat has its own rules and regulations related to external links and specifies ten types of content with external links that may be blocked. Here is the English translation:

1. Content that forces or entices users to share something (e.g. a WeChat article) in order to proceed to the next step, like getting information, winning a prize or taking part in a campaign; sometimes with benefits provided, including but not limited to cash, coupons, discounts and prizes
2. Content that forces or entices users to follow an official account in order to proceed to the next step, like getting information, winning a prize or taking part in a campaign
3. H5 games and tests that entice users for interactions, including friend Q&A, personality tests, online fortune telling or prediction games, etc.
4. Fraudulent content, including fake red packets or campaigns, and content that imitates the style and domain name of otherWeChat articles and accounts and may cause confusion
5. Rumors or false information that may cause harm to individuals, corporations, or other institutions
6. Spam, ads, and junk content, including information about counterfeit goods, ads making fraudulent claims, ads for cryptocurrencies, etc.
7. Content with sensational, exaggerated, or misleading headlines that don’t match the content as well as pornographic, erotic, and vulgar content
8. Content designed for the collection of users’ personal data or information without the user’s knowledge or consent
9. Content soliciting donations to religious organizations
10. Content offering payment for votes

According to WeChat’s regulations, once found, these external links will be blocked immediately and the related official account may also be sanctioned. In the worst case scenario, this can lead to a permanent ban.

More tips to avoid blocks at AshleyTalks. 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 for branding experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Why Alipay has a hard time cracking Hong Kong - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Alibaba has been successful in cracking China's financial markets, but going global, even to Hong Kong proves to be tough. The difference: innovating in China proved to be long overdue, while Hong Kong had already a well developed financial system, says financial analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, to the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

But AlipayHK faces competition from other providers as well as a mature payments market in Hong Kong, dominated by the city’s home-grown Octopus stored-value card. 

“The Octopus card was very innovative, allowing people to store money on a card and pay for the MTR or 7-Eleven. But this was so popular that it hurt innovation,” said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group. 

“Everybody in Hong Kong has a credit or debit card, so there isn’t a pressing need to figure out a new form of payments system, because what they had worked, while Hong Kong is also so convenient that e-commerce hasn’t taken off in any meaningful way, so there also isn’t a need for online or mobile payments to take off,” he said. 

Adding to the difficulty are concerns over data privacy because of a perceived connection between AlipayHK and its mainland China peer Alipay, as AlipayHK discovered in a recent survey it commissioned in Hong Kong. The survey found that only 30 per cent of the 1,049 respondents had experience of mobile payments, while over 55 per cent expressed worries over “personal data leakage”.

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 financial analysts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Why mobile commerce does not equal e-commerce - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Selling online in China needs a completely different approach compared to the rest of the world. Marketing veteran Ashley Dudarenok, author of Unlocking the World's Largest E-Market: A Guide to Selling on Chinese Social Media explains to CER what the difference is between e-commerce and mobile commerce, and why mobile is dominant in China.

CER:

A: Traditional retail is still the biggest retail channel in China, but this is changing rapidly. When we talk about e-commerce and offline retail, what is happening is that people don’t want to migrate either to one or the other, but instead radiate into the middle ground – the ‘new retail’ experience. That shift happens one the one hand because of the tastes of the consumer, but also the competitive drive from Alibaba and Tencent. 

How big is e-commerce itself? It’s big, but I’d say more important is mobile commerce. Last year, mobile commerce overtook e-commerce in terms of number of purchases made in China, but both are still smaller than offline channels. The key is that new retail is going to merge the online and offline into one ecosystem. We will not see offline stores disappear, certainly not. Instead we are about to see the evolution of these brick-and-mortar stores into the ‘new retail’ experience. I don’t believe employees are going to disappear from grocery stores or coffee shops, for instance, as people all seem to imagine when they picture the future of Chinese retail, they’re just going to be doing different jobs. They won’t be changing the price tags but entertaining us in the store in some way. 

Lots of people still misunderstand e-commerce and think it is omnichannel, with a company present across the spectrum, from mobiles to websites to stores. In reality, new retail is all about putting the consumers at the top and creating a huge data pool around their shopping trends – where, how, and what do they buy. From this, retailers both online and offline, distributors, suppliers etc. plug in and communicate with each other to optimally serve that individual. That’s the uniqueness of this experience. 

So we shouldn’t ask how big is e-commerce now, but how big will it be in three years. 

CER: You make the distinction between e-commerce and mobile commerce. Are they not just variations of the same thing? 

A: In China there is a huge difference. E-commerce is the traditional desktop ordering platforms such as Taobao. Mobile commerce is accessible by apps that often do not have a popular desktop version, like WeChat or some live-streaming platforms. This ability to use a phone to quickly complete the entire transaction is the main idea, and it is a huge business in China. 

CER: Why do you think online retail and mobile payments are so much more popular in China than in other parts of the world? 

A: There are many factors, the first probably being privacy. Westerners are very paranoid about privacy, but the Chinese just have a completely different approach to personal information. Just having a WeChat account, for example, basically requires uploading a passport – imagine how many users would flee Facebook if they started asking for such details. I think Western consumers tend to think beyond just convenience and are sceptical of how retailers might abuse any information provided. In China, there is less fear of being harassed or spammed, but instead giving out more info may just lead to better service. Take WeChat again: they do not allow many types of advertising or spamming etc., and really do focus on quality of service for the user over quantity of payments generated. Its users are at the centre of things, and users themselves know that if they give WeChat their bank info and other data, when they step out of their house later they will get a notification about a discount on their favourite coffee at a Starbucks they are about to walk past. 

A second is the integration of technology and society. The technology in the West just isn’t there. But in China the speed at which people adopt new ideas is rapid. Grandmas and grandpas are using mobile payment and shopping apps to guide their daily lives, but in Europe and the US people of that generation would most likely need their sons and daughters’ help. This extends to companies too, which expand and develop so fast here. There is that saying: ‘perfect is not fast enough.’ Trial and error will push forward progress much faster than a perhaps more mature approach of Western companies to achieve perfection before moving on to the next stage. This cautiousness and adherence to procedure is exactly why many foreign retail brands are suffering in China – they just can’t keep up with the locals. 

CER: Let’s focus on the companies themselves then. How are foreign retail brands competing with the homegrown players? 

A: It depends on the market segment. International B2B (business-to-business) firms just don’t have a clue what to do in China. FMCG brands are also losing market share year on year. 

Luxury brands, on the other hand, have retained their prestige for historical reasons, it has nothing to do with their adoption of technology. They are certainly going through a digital transformation right now, but they can afford to go a bit slower for this reason. They don’t have to worry about local firms beating them in terms of quality or image. Furthermore, luxury brands’ core Chinese consumer base is around the 35+ age group, which still has an affinity for traditional retail practices. 

But make no mistake, they want in on China and know a special approach is needed. A common strategy for a luxury group is to pick a single brand and digitalise it for the Chinese market, and if it works apply it to the other brands. 

CER: Lastly, what effects do you think there will be on businesses from Beijing’s increasing oversight of industries like mobile payments and peer-to-peer lending? 

A: Beijing is getting concerned with the amount of money flowing around in blockchain, cryptocurrencies and individual lending, but let’s remember China’s general policy: if it’s not forbidden, it’s allowed. So in the short term, until there are acute changes in policy, companies will keep doing what they’re doing. 

There will be more regulation in the long term, however, and an adjustment period will be necessary for retail companies. But I think once this is over it will be good for the industry. Are some brands going to be hit? Yes. But once the playbook is laid out, once firms know what they can and can’t do, companies can start setting up a solid, long-term infrastructure.

More in CER (here quoted in Chozan.

Ashley Durarendok 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 China's digital transformation? Do check out this list.

How to use WeChat for your marketing - Ashley Dudarenok

Ashley Dudarenok

Many foreign companies get it wrong when they try to use WeChat to sell in China. Marketing veteran Ashley Dudarenok, author of Unlocking the World's Largest E-Market: A Guide to Selling on Chinese Social Media gives the main takeaways for using WeChat for reaching the Chinese consumers.

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

The dangers of Trump's divisive economic policies - Harry Broadman

Harry Broadman

Making sense out of US president Donald Trump's economic policies has become impossible, even for the most seasoned observers, like Harry Broadman. For Forbes he tries to make sense out of the damage Trump has caused up to now, and the decades it will cost to repair that damage.

Harry Broadman:

With every passing day it’s getting increasingly difficult to not overstate the potentially profound corrosive effects on the opportunities and risks for continued growth in the U.S. and across the globe of the Trump Administration’s handling of international economic policy. As in his campaign, the President has been successfully—at least to date—pursuing a divide and conquer strategy domestically and internationally to try to achieve his goals. The result is an absence of a robust set of checks and balances to ensure that the best economic interests of the U.S. and the world will be served. 

The state of affairs is a triple whammy of divisiveness at home and abroad: the overarching direction and content of many of Trump’s policies is pitting firms in one sector against those in another, and business interests against consumers and workers--a strategy that will serve to distort and shrink the size of the economic pie, not one towards enhancing overall prosperity; the White House’s policy-making process of "America-go-it alone" on a bilateral basis is out of whack with both the actual multinational production structure of world markets and the companion long-standing multilateral protocol of teaming up with friendly countries through existing international alliances (for which the U.S. was the chief architect) to smooth out bad conduct by national actors who don’t play by global rules; and the seemingly moment-by-moment upheavals, in-fighting and reversals of the Administration’s stance on the economy is generating unprecedented policy uncertainty, which is only serving to destabilize long-term investment incentives (running counter to the objectives of the White House's earlier push for cutting corporate tax rates). 

The unmistakable substance of the Administration’s economic policy—echoing of course, Trump’s slogan of "making America great again"—is one of both significant protectionism and castigating those outside of the United States as the primary source of any woes evident in the domestic economy. 

It’s fundamentally counterproductive for Trump to ignore that there is in fact plenty of blame to be had at home if he truly wants to achieve his stated objectives. And, finger-pointing at foreigners, no matter how well it might sell at rallies or on television, distracts attention from where it needs to be focused.

More at Harry Broadman's column here republished with the kind permission of the author.

Harry Broadman 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 trying to make sense out of the US-China trade war at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

An emerging China tech IPO bubble? - Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis

China tech companies feel the pressure from their investors to join the emerging IPO wave, and that might not be a good development, says Paul Gillis, Beida accounting professor, at Nextunicorn.ventures.

Next Unicorn Ventures:

Hurun Research Institute reports that 151 companies in China have attained unicorn status by the end of the first quarter, with half of these unicorns incubated or backed by industry titans such as Alibaba and Tencent Holdings. Their combined valuations exceeded 4 trillion yuan (about US$630 billion). 

Moreover, according to a professor of accounting at Peking University Paul Gillis, there’s a fear of missing out and Chinese tech companies might receive pressure from investors to join in and join big. He added that Meituan-Dianping’s valuation target of US$60 billion is hard to understand, given that the company has revealed a steep loss of US$2.9 billion last year from share-based compensation.

More at Next Unicorn Ventures.

Paul Gillis 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 in managing your China risk at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

WeChat: an unavoidable magnitude - Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan

Tencent's social platform WeChat is so huge, nobody can avoid the giant in China, says WeChat expert Matthew Brennan to Sixth Tone. Even Alibaba's Jack Ma, Tencent's largest competitor, has to use the platform.

Sixth Tone:

Matthew Brennan — co-founder of consultancy China Channel, which provides insight into WeChat for foreign firms — agrees that WeChat is “pretty much unavoidable” for anyone who wants to function normally in Chinese society. He cites the case of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who famously announced in 2013 that he would be quitting WeChat and launching the company’s own messaging app. The app turned out to be a total failure, and Ma ended up reluctantly admitting in a livestreamed interview last year that he was back to using his competitor. “Even if you hate it as much as Jack Ma does, you have to use WeChat,” Brennan tells Sixth Tone.

More in Sixth Tone.

Matthew Brennan 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 another e-commerce expert at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

How China might use casinos in the trade war - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

China has many tools to retaliate in the trade war against the US than only putting tariffs on commodities. The lucrative US casinos might a one, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, in Forbes. 

Forbes:

“The risks for Sheldon Anderson’s Sands casinos are quite high,” China Market Research Managing Director Shaun Rein told Forbes. “It is quite possible that China will target his casinos specifically … It is possible they will ratchet up police surveillance of his Macau properties in order to spread fear among high rollers and even middle-class gamblers that they are being checked in on by the authorities. Or they will launch an audit of their books.

More in Casino.com

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 the ongoing trade war at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Brexit does not concern China investors - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

Investors from China are not discouraged by the upcoming Brexit, the exit of Britain from the EU, says Hurun China Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf on his second tour with twelve Chinese investors through the UK, he tells the China Daily.

The China Daily:

Twelve Chinese investors attended the event as part of a weeklong tour of the United Kingdom in search of opportunities. 

Rupert Hoogwerf, chairman of Hurun and organizer of the trip, said the fact that Britain is in the process of leaving the European Union does not trouble Chinese entrepreneurs at the individual level. 

“Most of the interest today is either to send children to school here, or to buy real estate for long-term investments,” he said. “Not one of these entrepreneurs this year and last year was particularly concerned, so it wasn’t really relevant.” 

At this year’s event, the companies making pitches were scale-ups, rather than start-ups. Hoogwerf said the event focused on start-ups last year but that “was actually a little bit too much for these people to swallow, so we think that the idea of scale-ups is potentially a much better way of doing it”. 

Hoogwerf said several investors had shown interest in some of the presentations.

More in the China Daily.

Rupert Hoogewerf 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 Rupert Hoogewerf at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

How a government critic got a WeChat account - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, interviewed the sociologist Guo Yuhua, a known critic of the government. One jewel in the interview on how she was able to open an account on WeChat, despite the governmental censorship, for the NY Review of Books.

Ian Johnson:

How did someone like you manage to open a public account on WeChat? 

I had such a hard time. I changed the name but nothing worked. Finally, I got in touch with someone from Tencent [the company that runs WeChat]. In recent years, I‘d done some research with them on the effect of the Internet on society. So I knew people from their research department. I asked, “why can’t I open a public account?” 

They said they’d look into it and got back to me and said, “You’re right, you really can’t.” I asked why and they said, “You’re restricted but let’s do it like this. You open the account and we’ll assign a person behind the scenes who will accompany you.” So I did as they said and when it started that person said, “I’m your first follower!” 

Your personal censor! Why does Tencent do it? What’s in it for them? 

They want to have readers. If it’s just boring stuff being published it’s not interesting for them, either. We had contact and they knew me. They know that my stuff isn’t extreme. It’s fairly academic. But the restrictions are still strict. For every five articles, two or three are cut. Sometimes, I have to argue with them—like over the Xi article—I say, “I can publish it in that academic magazine, so why not with you?” 

So that’s the way it is. The space gets smaller and smaller. If you want to publish your own work, it’s harder and harder. If you struggle, you might not have any [space]. But if you don’t struggle, you definitely won’t have any. So my motto is: “If you can say a bit more, say a bit more.”

More in the NY Review of Books.

Ian Johnson 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 startups, blockchain can prepare for the future - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean (right)

William Bao Bean, managing director of the Chinaccelerator, the first and longest-running startup accelerator program in China, supported in 2017 160 investments in startups. The blockchain is becoming increasingly a feature larger companies need, and where startups can help, he says in this interview.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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

Why threatening China on trade does not make sense - Sara Hsu

Sara Hsu

The US administration, followed by retaliation from Beijing, is heading for a full-scale trade war. Financial analyst Sara Hsu explains why threatening China is only going to make the fallout worse, not better, as the White House seems to be clueless about how China will react.

Sara Hsu 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 the tense relations between the US and China at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Reform: not a key point in China's economic development - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

Is China moving ahead or stalling in economic reforms? That question is often asked by Western observers of the country, and a profoundly wrong one, says leading economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® at the Asia Society. He blames his fellow economists for wishful thinking that is not helping to understand China.

The Asia Society:

So I think the position of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is that reform is a game that the Chinese don't really have to play. The current balance in China has as much to do with optimizing the performance of the state sector than it does optimize the performance of the market. 

I think there was a lot of wishful thinking in the West that the universal laws of economics would inevitably force the Chinese state to liberalize the economy because otherwise, they wouldn't be able to forge economic growth. But China has shown that it's perfectly able to achieve six to seven percent growth annually with large state sector involvement, and as long as that keeps happening they won't be forced to do anything. 

The grand strategy for the U.S. and the West over the past three decades has been to integrate China into the global economy. Given the recent struggles of working-class people in the West, was this strategy, in retrospect, a mistake? 

Absolutely not. I think that this was absolutely the correct strategy. Having China as a constructive player in the global economy, with their interests aligned with peace and stability and not with stirring the pot, is a gigantic achievement. Only people who were willfully ignorant of the problems that existed before and willfully blind to the enormous benefits could make that kind of statement. 

However, bringing China into the global economy — which involved moving hundreds of millions of low-wage, poorly-educated workers into the manufacturing sector — was a huge shock and one of the things that contributed to the reduction of manufacturing employment and wage reduction in the U.S. 

To my mind, that's an understandable and practical cost of bringing China into the global economy, which was a massive achievement. But the U.S. has done a terrible, terrible job of helping people adjust to that trauma. The failure wasn't in the China policy. It was in the domestic policy. There could have been a lot more investment in education and infrastructure.

More at the Asia Society.

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

Top-20 blockchain companies in China - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf in Shenzhen

Over the weekend, the Hurun Report chairman Rupert Hoogewerf presented in Shenzhen his latest report, together with Xiha Finance, on the top-20 blockchain companies in China, with Waltonchain as the winner, according to the Medium.com.

Medium.com:

This is the first time in the history of the Hurun that blockchain technology has been embraced. As the starting point to enhance the value of the blockchain technology, blockchain projects have become the focus of this awards ceremony. Waltonchain, as the winner of the Hurun Blockchain Innovators 2018 award, was invited to attend the awards ceremony. 

More than 1,000 industry leaders from all over Asia gathered at the conference. These included blockchain practitioners, experts, investors and big names such as Huawei, Ant Financial and Xiaomi. The focus was on new trends and how to construct a brand-new blockchain ecosystem with a new mindset — thinking outside of the box. Some hot topics were innovative applications, future development trends and risks of blockchain. 

As the winner of the Hurun Blockchain Innovators 2018 award, Waltonchain was also invited to attend. Waltonchain CSO Welson Wong accepted the award on behalf of Waltonchain. It is a fact that, having its excellent technical strength, Waltonchain has already become a leader in the blockchain + IoT industry. 

At present, the blockchain industry is rife with chaos and hype. Fortunately there are projects that are consistently recognized for their solid foundations and what they have actually accomplished in the real world. The Hurun Blockchain Companies List focuses on the essence of “chains” and helps serve the real economy and energize the blockchain ecosystem. 

As a leader in blockchain + IoT, Waltonchain aims to promote the healthy development of blockchain technology and strives to build a brand-new business ecosystem.

More at the Medium.com.

Rupert Hoogewerf 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 innovation at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.    

Local messaging apps beat international competition - Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan

In China, Tencent's WeChat became the leading messaging app, but  - unlike many think in the West - it is not government censorship that kept international competition at bay, says WeChat expert Matthew Brennan in The National. Also in other countries, local messaging app prove to be stronger.

The National:

In its native China, Tencent is a household name responsible for an app that has become a part of daily life – it’s called WeChat (“Weixin” in Mandarin). 

“It’s the universal connector in China,” says Matthew Brennan, who is writing a book on the history of WeChat, and regularly gives presentations about the app. “It’s the pipework for information. Everyone uses it, and people open WeChat around 40 to 50 times a day.” WeChat has more than a billion users and has features such as messaging, video conferencing, a social news feed, e-commerce, payment functions, smart city apps and transport booking, and much more. 

Mr Brennan believes it’s a common misconception – reported recently in the likes of The Guardian newspaper in the UK for example – that WeChat came to dominate in China because of state censorship of Western social media like Facebook and Instagram. 

“If you look at Line in Japan, or Kakao in South Korea, or Zalo in Vietnam, it’s been strong local competitors in Asia that have won,” Mr Brennan says, referencing the dominant messaging apps used in different Asian countries. 

“It’s winner takes all, and WeChat won [in China],” he says. 

Tencent is the world’s fifth-largest tech company by market capitalisation, overtaking Facebook this year and sitting behind only Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon. It has flourished, mostly domestically, through the likes of WeChat, its app store and content provision with Tencent Video and Music, but in another important domain it has become a powerful player on a global scale.

More in the National.

Matthew Brennan 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.  

How China's Dead Sea Scrolls ended up in Washington - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

In a Washington mall, the Chu Silk manuscript - China's equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls - can be found. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao describes how those precious relicts disappeared from China and ended up in the US, a journey now meticulously describes by the Chinese scholar, Prof. Li Ling of the Peking University for the New York Times. 

Ian Johnson:

Sitting in an underground storeroom near the Washington Mall is a tiny silk parchment. Written 2,300 years ago, it is a Chinese version of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with text that swirls like the stars through the firmament and describes the relationship between humans and heaven. 

For decades, the ancient document, known as the Chu Silk Manuscript, has fascinated people seeking an understanding of the origins of Chinese civilization. But it has been hidden from public view because of its fragility — and the uncertain circumstances by which it ended up in the United States. 

Now, a prominent Chinese historian and archaeologist has pieced together its remarkable odyssey in a meticulously documented analysis that has caused a stir in the rarefied world of Chinese antiquities and raised broader questions about collectors who profit from pillaging historic sites. 

The 440-page study traces the provenance from tomb raiders who discovered it during World War II, to an antiques dealer whose wife and daughter died fleeing Japanese troops, to American spies who smuggled it out of China and finally to several museums and foundations in the United States.

The findings have put new pressure on the manuscript’s current owner, the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, to return it to China after decades of on-again, off-again efforts to sell it to Chinese institutions. According to people briefed on the discussions, the foundation is now in renewed talks with Beijing and indicated that it was willing to settle for a “finder’s fee.” 

Much more in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson 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 Ian Johnson at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.
 

Retaliatory action in the trade war - Sara Hsu

Sara Hsu

Financial analyst Sara Hsu discusses retaliatory action in the trade war between China and the US at CrossTalk on RT. Russia and Brazil are ready to fill in the gaps the US might leave in supplies for China.

Sara Hsu 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 the trade war between China and the US? Do check out this list. 

Why China will not sell off its US treasuries - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber

More than once selling US bonds in the hands of China has been suggested as a powerful tool in the trade war with the US. But selling those treasuries does not make sense, says economist Arthur Kroeber, author of China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® in the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

In spite of policy and political uncertainty under the Trump administration, the liquidity and security that US Treasuries offer continues to be unrivalled by any other form of asset. 

Arthur Kroeber, co-founder and research head of Gavekal Dragonomics, said a Beijing sell-off of US Treasuries, which was utterly unlikely, would only make Beijing look reckless and foolish – the last thing Xi would want as China seeks to play the “good guy” in contrast to the unpredictable Trump. 

In addition, a big sale from China of US Treasuries in the open market would mean China would have to buy replacement assets, but none constituted a viable alternative, Kroeber said. 

It is not surprising then, that during the three rounds of trade talks between Beijing and Washington, neither Beijing nor Washington publicly made China’s holding of Treasuries as an issue for negotiation.

More in the South China Morning Post.

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 experts guiding you through the trade war between China and the US? Do check out this list .

Why the WTO has to rethink China's position - Harry Broadman

Harry Broadman

China's accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was hailed as an important step of the now second-largest economy into the global trade community. But those illusions are over, says trade expert Harry Broadman to Gulfnews. "China has forfeited its right to be treated as a WTO market economy."

Harry Broadman:

At its roots, China isn’t a market-based economy. It’s separation of business and government remains ephemeral; private property rights are still fuzzy, and rarely protected; identification of the beneficial owner(s) and who has ultimate control over decisions within some of the country’s key enterprises is opaque. The large state-owned banks hold little check, if any, over the large backbone state-owned enterprises to whom they lend and often never pay off debts owed.

Communist Party officials occupy some of the most senior positions in the enterprise and financial sectors, including most recently naming the country’s top banking regulator as the party chief and deputy governor of the Central Bank; and foreign investors must transfer technology to Chinese firms if they wish to invest in the country.

At the same time, Trump’s insistence on handling China in a US go-it-alone manner is just plain wrong-headed. We know from his many statements that anything but negotiating on a bilateral basis is anathema to him — a man whose career was built on doing one-off real estate deals in New York. But international trade negotiations are far more nuanced and complex.

Rather than using the “power of collective action” and building a coalition of other major trading powers — many of whom like the US have been exposed to China conducting trade inconsistent with prevailing international norms — Trump’s efforts will have him falling flat on his face.

What’s needed is a fundamental alteration of the treatment of China within the WTO framework — that is, if the WTO is to have any further meaning and survive. It’s finally time to call a spade a spade.

And, it’s also high time for the US to change its trade tactics towards Beijing. It needs to form a coalition of WTO members who make it clear that it really is Beijing’s choice to decide the type of economy it believes China’s population wants.

But that as of now, China has forfeited its right to be treated as a WTO market economy and it has three options: renegotiate its WTO Accession; gracefully exit the WTO; or diplomatically be shown the WTO door.

More at Gulfnews.

Harry Broadman 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.   

China's policy change of its automotive industry - Mark Schaub

Mark Schaub

China has not only been leading the way to develop self-driving cars, it has also been are the forefront of legal changes needed to allow those cars into society. The Shanghai-based lawyer Mark Schaub gives an overview of the new regulations the government has been introducing at the China Law Insight.

Mark Schaub:

China is embarking on bold moves to re-shaping its auto industry policy. This follows recent announcements in relaxation of key restrictions on foreign investment in the auto sector. 

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the body tasked in China with laying the direction for industrial policy. On May 17, 2018 the NDRC circulated the draft Administrative Rules on Auto Industry Investment (“Draft Rules”) to local governments and industry stakeholders for comment. The Draft Rules when passed will replace the current car industry development policy that has been in place since 2004. 

In short the Draft Rules reform the China approval system for auto investment projects by delegating more authority to local governments, expressly prohibit any new production capacity for fossil-fuelled vehicles and raise the threshold for establishing electric vehicle manufacturing companies. 

The Draft Rules set 25 May 2018 as the deadline for feedback from local governments and industry participants.   Accordingly a tight timeline and sorry if you missed it! This does, however, hint that feedback will be limited and that NDRC has clear ideas as to the direction it intends to take. Generally, longer feedback periods are granted... 

The Draft Rules continue and extend existing policies in place. 

On the one hand China has announced relaxation of restrictions on foreign investment in auto sector with a 5-year transition plan and also reducing import tariffs on autos to 15% from 25% and on auto parts to 6%. 

On the other hand China is clearly putting in place policies to allow it to have a strong domestic auto market in which it will compete head to head with international competitors. This future competition will be in respect of NEVs and autonomous cars. 

The Draft Rules are expected to be officially issued within 2018 but their impact on the China’s auto industry will reach into the next decade.

More at the China Law Insight.

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

Are you looking for more experts on China's innovation? Do check out this list.