Trump’s trade war against China is backfiring, says financial analyst Sara Hsu at the China Focus. While ideologically the trade war makes sense, US consumers and companies pay a high price, she says.

China’s internet giant Tencent has become a winner, first by copying US competitors, but now it has become their inspirator, says Tencent-watcher Matthew Brennan to Leadersleague. “WeChat does not monetize data, but it is a growth lever for other businesses in the Tencent group. It’s a bit like iOS or Android in that regard,” says Brennan.

China banned in September 2017 ICOs (Initial Coins Offerings) after some high-profile cases of fraud but certainly not block all blockchain activities. Lawyer Mark Schaub looks at the China Law Insight at how the government tries to regulate blockchain, one year after the initial ICO ban.

The stagnation of China’s growth caused a massive drop of rich out of the Hurun China Rich List, says Hurun chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf. But that drop has been more than compensated by the record growth of new unicorns in the country, he tells the South China Morning Post. China fostered almost 100 new unicorns in 2018.

Tencent’s WeChat released last week to manage its successful mini-programs, moving ahead with an operating system, pushing against the already embattled competitor Apple, says Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan in CNBC.  The fight focuses on China, where mini-programs are most popular.

Bureaucratic rules have hampered China’s access to international talents, for example because of troublesome rules on visas for experts. But Hainan is going to do this better, says innovation expert and managing director of the Chinaccelarator in Shanghai William Bao Bean to the South China Morning Post.

Zhang Xiaolong, the founder of Tencent’s WeChat, delivered a speech on how the future of the company looks like. Tencent watcher Matthew Brennan looks at the way Tencent is doing things different than Apple, and why their mini-programs might be a winner, in Technode.

US investor Jim Rogers visited on January 8th the Hainan Global Fintech Innovation Summit and explored the possibilities of the island to become China’s Silicon Valley at Contact Hainan. “You have fabulous weather, you have a fabulous lifestyle in Hainan if you continue to open up, and make it easy for people to come here, Hainan probably will become the greatest place in China.”

The US-China trade war has another casualty: the CES consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order to the South China Morning Post.

China is leading the innovation for retail and two to three years ahead of the US, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China’s Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, to CSB News. Internet giants like Alibaba started on mobile and then turned to brick-and-mortar, unlike the traditional retail who try to force online upon their customers.