On April 1st, 2017, the Chinese government announced the formation of a new special economic and development zone: the Xiong’an New Area. About 60 miles southwest of Beijing, in Hebei province, the area will combine the now relatively rural counties of Rongcheng, Anxin and Xiong. With an expected investment of $583 billion over the next 20 years in infrastructure alone, Xiong’an is set to transform from a largely agricultural and low-tech manufacturing region, into a high-tech, environmentally sustainable modern metropolis. It will also, according to the plan, alleviate some population pressures from Beijing while serving as a destination for some administrative departments, logistics bases and other government offices.
CKGSB Knowledge Fall 2017 Issue: Is China Ready To Lead?
Click to download the CKGSB Knowledge Fall 2017 Issue, No.27 The Fall 2017 issue of CKGSB Knowledge is out! It has articles and interviews like: COVER STORY: State-owned Reform: China’s massive state sector is going through massive reforms COMMENTARY: A Confucian Renaissance: China’s success has some asking whether the Middle Kingdom is ready to lead the world—it may not be, but […]
Piece by Piece: SOE Reform is Among China’s Biggest Challenges
For the past few years, China has been pursuing a new and ambitious state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform program. SEOs are huge in terms of size, yet they only provide 16% of jobs, less than a third of national economic output, and a return on assets of only 2.9%. Hugely inefficient, debt-ridden and responsible for most of China’s ballooning corporate debt, SOEs are a drag on an economy that Beijing wants to transition—unlike past efforts which is about privatization, but just the opposite—from investment and export-driven to services and consumption-driven.
Is China Ready to Lead?
Many developing nations see China as a champion and as an investor. Western countries wish to see China shoulder a greater share of the burden of global leadership, and a growing number of Chinese citizens want China to reclaim its ancient role of international dominance. But is China ready to “lead the world?” Has it reached the stage where it can set the international tone, take the central role on global issues and provide preeminent guidance toward the future? To many the answer might be “yes”, but as the foundations of the powerhouse economy are actually weaker than they seem, that assessment may be premature.
China’s Fitness Industry: Growing Fast, but with Big Challenges
The wish to be healthier and the benefits that can come of it are boosting the growth of fitness gyms and sporting events. During the past couple of years, over 37,000 fitness clubs mushroomed in China. And in 2016 alone, 2.8 million people participated in 328 marathons, the latter number now being 14 times the level of five years ago, according to the 2016–2017 China Fitness Industry White Paper and the Chinese Athletic Association (CAA). So Chinese consumers are ready to pay for health and wellness, but have the fitness clubs figured out their best offer?
NetEase, China’s Online Underdog
NetEase is the Chinese internet pioneer you have probably never heard of. Founded in 1997, before its bigger and better-known Chinese internet peers Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (collectively known as BAT), it is largely unknown outside of China. NetEase is currently making big pushes into many new businesses: e-commerce, online learning, music streaming and a host of other businesses, but it still has a long way to go to climb back to the top of the China tech tree. Analysts note that NetEase lacks the breadth of its rivals’ businesses, and that will likely stymie its growth, unless it can continue to diversify successfully.
CKGSB Knowledge Summer 2017 Issue: China and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Summer 2017 issue of CKGSB Knowledge is out! It has articles and interviews like: COVER STORY: India: The New Battlefield: The next big market is right next door to China, and the entire world is looking for a piece of it COMMENTARY: The Fourth Industrial Revolution: A new era is upon us, and this time it will be different, not least […]
ETH Zürich Professor Brad Nelson on AI, China, Medical Robotics and Commercialization
Back in 2014, Stephen Hawking warned that people should be careful about artificial intelligence (AI)—the full development of it could spell the end of the human race, he said. Brad Nelson, professor of robotics and intelligent systems at ETH Zürich, is optimistic about the technology’s development. To him, machines and robotics are augmenting instead of replacing the human workforce. In this interview with CKGSB Knowledge, Nelson talks about the state of AI so far, China’s advantages in this industry and, as an engineer, his insights into the relation between humans and machines.
SF Express Vies for Greater Market Share
China’s business world is littered with rags-to-riches entrepreneurs—Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group, was an English teacher before starting Alibaba. Not all such magnates are equal, however, and joining Ma in the upper echelons of China’s rich list was Wang Wei, chairman of delivery and logistics company SF Express, who initially started out by lugging packages between Hong Kong and mainland China, operating in a legal gray zone as he did so. But now SF Express has grown to become the most successful logistics company in China. Listed in Shenzhen Stock Exchange in early 2017, the company has many competitive advantages over its counterparts.
China and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)
The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is “a fusion of technologies” that blurs the lines “between the physical, digital, and biological spheres,” according to Klaus Schwab, the founder of the Davos Forum. This fusion of so many fields will ultimately see 4IR change the world far more fundamentally than the first three industrial revolutions. Any analysis of the many technological breakthroughs that now define this new 4IR business world is incomplete at best if it misses the China factor. At the dawn of the 4IR era, China is much better positioned than in the past to seize the opportunities offered by an industrial transformation.
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