A steep economic slowdown is exacerbating the problems for once-golden startups in the sharing economy, from those offering shared office space to shared umbrellas In China’s sharing economy, it is no longer possible to just share and share alike. The concepts encompassed by the phrase “sharing economy” inspired a huge injection of investment funds […]
Freshly Brewed or Overly Roasted?
Chinese startup Luckin Coffee is expanding at a breakneck pace. How will Starbucks and other coffee players respond? Starbucks had coffee lovers in China’s main cities wrapped up until Luckin arrived, but is the market big enough and growing fast enough for both and more coffee vendors?
Are the US and China Decoupling?
Given their ongoing differences, what will the future of China-US relations look like? After more than 40 years of growing ties, the economies of China and the US are now deeply intertwined, and decoupling to any degree would mean a disentangling of enormous complexity.
Stretched to the Breaking Point: WTO is Becoming Dysfunctional
The WTO is the world’s primary trading system, comprised of 164 member-economies scattered across all of the world’s five continents, and it is obviously in the interests of the world that it works effectively. But growing disputes between China and the Western economies are making the World Trade Organization increasingly dysfunctional. Could the result be a radical overhaul of the global trading system?
Reading the Tea Leaves: Shen Jianguang on the Chinese Economy
A new year is a time for fresh starts and new beginnings. At least, that is what policymakers in Beijing will be hoping. The second half of 2018 produced some negative headlines on the economy as a domestic deleveraging drive and the intensifying trade war with the US slowed growth and undermined confidence. Will these headwinds continue battering the Chinese economy or will Beijing be able to engineer a recovery? There are few people better placed to answer this question than Shen Jianguang, one of China’s most respected economic analysts, whose career has included stints at the European Central Bank, IMF and OECD.
The View from Beijing: Understanding China’s Perspective on the Trade War
For many in Beijing, the trade war confirms long-held suspicions that the United States is determined to thwart China’s rise as the world’s next superpower. As a result, US demands that China abandon Made in China 2025 have also tended to be viewed by Beijing as being motivated not by concerns over fair competition, but by a desire to make sure America keeps its lead in the global innovation race. Public statements from senior figures in the Trump administration have fueled these concerns—the trade war not as an isolated incident, but part of a longer history of US attempts to undermine rival powers.
Kishore Mahbubani: the West Needs to Rethink its Strategic Goals for Asia
Few thinkers can speak about global governance with as much authority as Kishore Mahbubani. A former President of the United Nations Security Council, Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry and Dean of the renowned Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, he has been named “the muse of the Asian century”. In his latest book, due next year, Mahbubani plans to tackle the rising tensions between the US and China. As he explains, the US should embrace a more minimalist and strategic approach to foreign policy to maximize its interests in an era of Asian dominance.
Is China Pumping the Brakes on its Transition to a Services-Based Economy?
The World Bank estimates that up to 77% of jobs in China could be made redundant by machines in the long term. Investing in robots will become more attractive for manufacturers. The Chinese government also pledges to make China a “world factory” of robots. But real changes are much slower. Reports say that large numbers of workers are still used on production lines doing repetitive tasks such as scrubbing speaker systems with toothbrushes. Despite the fact that China’s labor costs are six times higher than 10 years ago, workers are often still cheaper than robots in short term.
China IPOs: Why Chinese Companies List Overseas
For many years, China’s emerging companies, especially those in the internet sector, have relied on foreign capital. Alibaba and Tencent were nurtured by overseas venture capital, and were eventually listed abroad. These two companies have today become world-class giants. The market value of Alibaba was $495 billion as of late May, while Tencent’s valuation was $605 billion. This puts them among the world’s top 10 most valuable companies. The success of China’s leading tech companies is an understandable source of pride to many in China. But for China’s policymakers, a question presents itself: why do so many outstanding Chinese companies end up going public overseas?
East or West? Some European Countries are Trying Hard to Balance
Central and Eastern Europe faces a tough balancing act as it looks toward China for investment and growth. Launched first in 2012, the “16+1” Cooperation Framework includes 16 countries in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. As a key part of the Chinese transcontinental economic and geopolitical vision, the heavily invested “16+1” becomes a perfect solution to some Central and Eastern Europe countries facing economic crisis. This closer tie with China, however, has made EU rattled. How to balance the relationship with EU and China becomes a head-scratching problem for many.
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