Conversation
02.16.24

It’s Grim out There: China’s Economy in the Year of the Dragon

Anne Stevenson-Yang, Zongyuan Zoe Liu & more

Some observers have been predicting an economic collapse in China for decades. Others have long predicted that China would be stuck in a middle-income trap or some other type of economic stagnation. Might some of these predictions come true this...

Viewpoint
11.07.23

China-Saudi RMB Settlement Will Insulate the Oil Trade from U.S. Sanctions

Christopher Vassallo

In recent years, Beijing has made efforts to facilitate the settlement of China-Saudi oil trade in renminbi (RMB) rather than in U.S. dollars, a move that would steel China’s trade from financial sanctions and disrupt the global market for oil....

Excerpts
05.19.23

Can Chinese Payment Apps Gain Traction Globally?

Martin Chorzempa

Chinese-owned social media app TikTok is a global phenomenon. Yet, for every TikTok, there is a WeChat, an app that is ubiquitous in China but that has failed to catch fire abroad. WeChat is just one of many Chinese apps incorporating financial...

Viewpoint
01.26.23

What Impact Would a U.S. Debt Default Have on China?

Arthur R. Kroeber

The big political drama in Washington in the next few months will be the fight over the federal debt ceiling. The worst-case scenario is that Congress refuses to raise the ceiling and the U.S. Treasury defaults on its debt. Since U.S. treasury...

Conversation
03.11.21

Hong Kong’s Economic Future

Ho-fung Hung, Flora Huang & more

If conventional wisdom held that China would never risk Hong Kong’s market, that was predicated on a specter of a foreign financial exodus. When the national security law was promulgated, experts warned of an international withdrawal and an end...

The China Africa Project
05.17.19

Why China’s ‘Debt Trap Diplomacy’ Critics Are Wrong

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more

China’s critics, led largely by the United States, are determined to warn developing countries about the risks of borrowing too much money from Beijing. They contend China will use these loans to financially entrap economically vulnerable...

China Millennials’ Love of Credit Cards Raises Debt Fears

Mr Wang is part of a generation of young consumers who have rejected the thrifty habits of their elders and become used to spending with borrowed money. Outstanding consumer loans — used for vehicle purchases, holidays, household renovations and...

Books
04.12.18

China’s Great Wall of Debt

An inside look at how and why the foundations upon which China has built the world’s second largest economy have started to crumble.

China Stocks at Risk of Outpacing Fundamentals

As the Chinese stock market’s disastrous 2015 boom-and-bust fades from memory, investors are in a mood to buy. Chinese stocks both on the mainland and in Hong Kong outperformed the S&P 500 last year, as economic growth accelerated for the...

Conversation
10.06.17

Is China the Future of Bitcoin, or Its Past?

Andrew Collier, Isaac Mao & more

China often dominates the market for Bitcoin, a virtual currency managed by a decentralized network of computers: at points over the last few years, China may have accounted for more than 75 percent of Bitcoin trading. Energy...

The China Africa Project
09.18.17

Africa Needs Infrastructure, China Wants to Build It. So What’s the Problem?

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more

Every week seemingly brings a new announcement of a Chinese-financed mega project somewhere in Africa. Last week’s announcement...

Depth of Field
06.29.17

Love, Robots, and Fireworks

Ye Ming, Yan Cong & more
from Yuanjin Photo

Included in this Depth of Field column are stories of love, community, remembrance, and the future, told through the discerning eyes of some of China’s best photojournalists. Among them, the lives of African migrants in Guangzhou, seven years...

China Has a Huge Debt Problem. How Bad Is It?

Credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded China this week, warning that the country’s financial health is suffering from rising debt and slowing economic growth. It’s the first time the agency has cut China’s rating in nearly three decades.

China’s Downgrade Could Lead to a Mountain of Debt

The downgrade of China’s debt by Moody’s Investors Service may push Chinese companies to borrow even more money from domestic banks as overseas debt becomes more expensive, increasing risks for the nation’s finance industry.

Books
05.02.17

China’s Mobile Economy

China’s Mobile Economy: Opportunities in the Largest and Fastest Information Consumption Boom is a cutting-edge text that spotlights the digital transformation in China. Organized into three major areas of the digital economy within China, this ground-breaking book explores the surge in e-commerce of consumer goods, the way in which multi-screen and mobile Internet use has increased in popularity, and the cultural emphasis on the mobile Internet as a source of lifestyle- and entertainment-based content.

Caixin Media
10.24.16

The Yuan’s Internationalization is Just Beginning

The official acceptance of the yuan (or renminbi) into the International Monetary Fund’s elite currency club on October 1 marked a milestone in the Chinese government’s campaign to boost the yuan’s international appeal.

...

Caixin Media
02.24.16

Regulators Leave Wealth Management Industry Unplugged

Financial market supervisors admit that gaping holes pockmark the regulatory fences they’ve built in recent years to control the wealth management industry and protect its investors.

By occasionally introducing new rules...

Viewpoint
01.15.16

China’s New Development Bank Needs Better Human Rights Protections

Nicholas Bequelin

On January 16, the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will meet in Beijing to ...

Caixin Media
08.03.15

Villain or Hero for Stock Market Saga?

An obscure equities-trading finance agency that brokers often slighted in favor of bank loans has suddenly taken center stage in the drama playing out in the stock market.

But reviews are mixed over whether the four-year-old, quasi-...

Conversation
07.29.15

Can Xi Jinping Turn China’s Economy Around?

Arthur R. Kroeber, George Chen & more

On Monday, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 8.5 percent, erasing all of the gains it had made in an extraordinary run-up this year. The drop was the second 8.5 percent drop in recent weeks. The first such drop (the occasion for the Conversation...

China’s Shares Tumble Again

Artists, essayists, lawyers, bloggers and others deemed to be online troublemakers have been hauled into police stations and investigated or imprisoned for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a charge that was once confined to physical...

Why are China’s Stock Markets so Volatile?

Home to the world’s largest equity markets after the US, China is still extremely volatile with benchmark indices often swinging as much as 10 per cent in a matter of hours.

Techies Are Trying to Get Chinese Consumers to Rack Up Debt

In recent years, as the growth of the Chinese economy has slowed—thanks to declining demand for exports and new real estate projects—the government has been desperate to get its thrifty citizens to spend, spend, spend and drive economic growth...

Sinica Podcast
05.04.15

The Furor and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn
from Sinica Podcast

A total of 57 countries have now joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China’s newly-launched competitor to the Asian Development Bank (AIIB) that has sparked a flurry of objections from the United States, even culminating in a failed...

The Dragon and the Gringo

Time was when cash-strapped Latin American governments would turn to the IMF for the bitter medicine of its bail-outs. No longer. Over the past dozen years the supercycle of rising commodity prices has swelled the region’s coffers, while even the...

Environment
01.15.15

China-Latin America Summit ‘A Missed Opportunity’ on Low-Carbon Energy

The first major meeting of Chinese and Latin American leaders agreed closer cooperation on trade, investment, and industry, but is more likely to usher in deals on oil and gas rather than renewable energy, analysts said in response to a summit...

Hong Kong IPOs Become Losing Bets for Investors

Hong Kong is one of the world’s top venues for initial public offerings, thanks to listings by Chinese companies over the years, but most of the IPOs have been a losing bet for investors, with the bulk of them lagging behind the market in recent...

China’s New Old Financial Capital

Hong Kong’s democracy protests are often said to be futile because the city is no longer China’s golden goose, protected from Beijing’s wrath by its economic importance. But Monday’s big news shows that things aren’t so simple: The opening of a “...

Why China Won Mexico’s High-Speed Rail Project

Underlying Mexico’s decision to choose China, and what may have made it the only country able to meet to proposal deadline, was its decision to finance 85 percent of the project through the Export-Import Bank of China.

Sinica Podcast
10.24.14

Chomping at the Bitcoin

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn
from Sinica Podcast

After a shocking expose of Jeremy Goldkorn’s criminal past, Sinica this week moves on to examine the Bitcoin phenomenon in China. Joined by Zennon Kapron, owner of the Shanghai consultancy ...

Picture Mixed Over Anti-Foreigner Bias of Chinese Regulator

The alleged anti-foreigner bias of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which enforces pricing provisions of the 2008 Anti Monopoly Law, has become an increasingly common complaint among multinational executives working in the...

Zhang Lei has Lunch with the FT

The billionaire Chinese financier was among the first to see the potential in homegrown internet companies. He talks about a career that began when he rented out comics at the age of seven.

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