Russian-born China digital marketing guru Ashley Dudarenok has been spending much of her recent professional life in Hong Kong. In December she swapped her Russian passport for a Hong Kong one and became a real Hongkonger. In the South China Morning Post, she explains why.Read More →

Now China suddenly started to retract its zero-Covid strategy, strategic analyst Ian Johnson looks back at how the country got itself into this unprecedented mess at the Prospect. The economic slowdown and high unemployment “are all underlying issues that actually make the government’s challenge greater than first appears,” says Ian Johnson.Read More →

The German government has become much more assertive about the country’s wheeling and dealing with China. Veteran China lawyer Mark Schaub visited over the past few weeks Berlin and Munich and felt the pulse of the German business communities toward China, he reports in his China Chit-chat. “Politicians in Germany have limited ability to influence or pressure German business. Consumers can be upset … but will become upset about something else 5 minutes later,” he writes.Read More →

Global companies have been warning of the major effects of China’s lockdown on their operations, curtailing Shanghai for more than six weeks. But they have very few alternatives apart from sitting out the ordeal, says Shanghai-based business analyst Ben Cavender to CNN. The corporate exodus from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine did not help. For sure, consumption in China is down.Read More →

As the internet becomes a dominant sales channel in China, virtual key opinion leaders (KOLs) are becoming key for brands, says marketing expert Arnold Ma to the Jing Daily. As patriotism becomes an issue for global brands in China, they have to be careful in picking those virtual KOLs, adds Ma.Read More →

The massive US$34.5 billion IPO by Jack Ma’s Ant Group has been derailed by regulatory action, days before its listing, and that does not make the investors happy, says political analyst Shaun Rein at AP. The decision also might rattle Chinese entrepreneurs who were considering selling shares on their own country’s market, said Rein.Read More →

The world never saw so much reaction of wealth as during 2020, says Rupert Hoogewerf, chief researcher of the Hurun China Rich List, despite the coronavirus crisis triggered off by COVID-19. Even seasoned rich-research Hoogewerf is amazed by the number of billionaires China created over the past months, he tells Devdiscourse, citing the newly released Hurun China Rich List 2020.Read More →

Not authoritarian rule but solid support from China’s citizens allowed its government to beat the Covid-19 and effectively deal with the coronavirus crisis, argues Singapore-based journalist Ian Johnson, in the New York Review of Books. He uses the Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City by Fang Fang, to show the government did not silence critics but did win majority support by its people, helped by indeed heavily manipulated media in China.Read More →