China and Iran are preparing for mutual trade of about 600 billion US$, tells Beijing entrepreneur Andy Mok to Iranian TV station TV-Press. But the recently reopened trade offers much more than the usual suspects, oil and gas.

There has been too much negativity about Alibaba, says business analyst Shaun Rein to Bloomberg. While commodities like steel and coal have a hard time, consumer spending it going up in the 3-4th tier cities, and Alibaba will profit from it, even more than competitor JD.com.

China has three scenario´s to choose from by the end of next year, when the new Party Congress convenes, tells author Arthur Kroeber,China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know®, at the European Council of Foreign Relations. Or Russia-style nationalism, Japan-style slowdown 2.0 or a Singapore on steroids.

600 Million Chinese internet users use their mobile phone to pay, and increasingly they use not the traditional banks and credit cards, but newcomers in the industry. Innovation expert William Bao Bean discusses what will happen to the traditional banks when mobile payments advance also outside China.

How deep are the pockets of the People´s Bank of China (PBOC) to keep on funding its financial system? According to economist Arthur Kroeber they are safe for another year, and can use the time to clean up the current mess. Learning how to communicate with the markets is one talent that needs urgent development, he tells Bloomberg.

Chinese companies have often been blamed for copying Western innovation and patents. But now China takes the lead in mobile innovations, the argument seems to go the other way. Many of the features we know from WeChat we see now popping up at Facebook. Innovator William Bao Bean discusses whether Facebook has become a WeChat clone.

Erasing the middle management and organizing competition internally: those are two features in new revolutionary corporate structures in China. Haier and Tencent have made big inroads. Innovation expert William Bao Bean discusses Tencent and how their organization works.

Luxury spending might have been hit by Xi Jinping´s anti-corruption campaign, but travel is on the way up. Rupert Hoogewerf just published his 5th China Luxury Travel Report and sees the super rich spending more time and money on more trips. Technology and luxury travel agencies set the trends, he tells Thoughtful China.

Alibaba is looking for content to sell more products, and building influence among its future markets, explains WSJ wealth editor Wei Gu. The news paper might not make as much profit as in the past, it still has a huge influence in Hong Kong.

Huawei has replaced Xiaomi as the preferred mobile in China. Is you want to be cool, you buy Apple, if you want a decent local product, you buy Huawei, says business analyst Shaun Rein in Yahoo Finance. Xiaomi is still a good company, but US$45 billion might be a little bit high, he says.