Bitcoin in China
Bitcoin, a virtual stored-value system not regulated by any country or banking authority, has been a huge phenomenon this year and much of the action has been driven out of China.
Is North Korea Unwinding Economic Ties With China?
These are grim days not only for the friends and family of recently executed North Korean official Jang Song Thaek, but also for people and programs he had supported—including economic relations with China, which Jang had overseen.
Foreign Correspondents in China Do Not Censor Themselves to Get Visas
Compared with five years ago, when the Chinese leadership promised to ease restrictions on foreign journalists as part of reforms unveiled during the Beijing Olympics charm campaign, the atmosphere has clearly chilled.
Late to the Party? The U.S. Government’s Response to China’s Censorship
When China denied veteran journalist Paul Mooney’s visa request in November, neither the State Department, Administration officials nor anyone on Capitol Hill said anything publicly about a U.S. citizen appearing to be punished for his speech....
China’s Strong-Arm Tactics Toward U.S. Media Merit a Response
Chinese journalists get an open door to the United States. This reflects U.S. values and is fundamentally correct. If China continues to exclude and threaten American journalists, the U.S. should inject a little more symmetry into its visa policy...
The Vitamin C Cartel (Video)
A Chinese cartel has come to control 100% of the Vitamin C that is contained in foods found in American supermarkets, an unprecedented circumstance which will have political and economic ramifications in the near future.
Conversation
09.13.13
What Can China and Japan Do to Start Anew?
Paula S. Harrell:
While the media keeps its eye on the ongoing Diaoyu/Senkaku islands dispute, heating up yet again...
China Trade Rebounds in Further Sign Economy Stablizing
China’s exports increased more than estimated in August and inflation stayed below a government target, helping Premier Li Keqiang sustain a rebound in the world’s second-largest economy from a two-quarter slowdown.
China Bans Milk Powder of Two South Pacific Nations
Nearly 90 percent of China’s $1.9 billion in milk powder imports last year originated in New Zealand. Economists said a prolonged ban could produce a shortage of dairy products in China, including foreign-branded infant formula.
Move Over Bordeaux: French Premium Winemakers Eye China Vintage
In a country where cheap plonk and overpriced mediocre wines still define the domestic industry, the French are partnering with Chinese investors to produce super-premium wines for increasingly discerning drinkers at the...
Conversation
07.23.13
What Would a Hard Landing in China Mean for the World?
Barry Naughton:
Paul Krugman in a recent post (“How Much Should We Worry About a China Shock?” The New York...
China Pushes Europe to Lower Hurdles to Solar Deal
A European Commission document dated July 12 said China wants any solar agreement to expire by the end of 2014, that the so-called certain parts of the panels should be excluded from tariffs and that any cap on Chinese exports should be...
Viewpoint
07.16.13
CFIUS and the U.S. Senate’s Anti-China Bug
Last week, senators from both parties finally came together for a common objective: stopping the $4.7 billion sale of America’s largest pork producer to China. Their reason? The sale of Smithfield Farms to a Chinese company, Shuanghui, could pose...
China’s Blackout of U.S. Media Can No Longer Be Ignored
Web censorship is not just an inconvenience but also a reminder that many leading U.S. media and technology companies are excluded, or largely excluded, from one of the world’s largest markets and this country’s largest trading partner....
Prospects for U.S.-China Trade in Meat Products and Associated Investment Opportunities
Paulson Institute
The rapid growth rate in per capita disposable income in China, coupled with a continued migration of hundreds of millions of new consumers to urban areas, has created challenges for the Chinese crop and livestock sectors. Faced with an increase...
China’s Strength Could Become Its Weakness
The heavy reliance on state investment produced unintended consequences. Overbuilding of housing created a real estate bubble. The investment a capacity to produce that overshot demand in a variety of areas.
Conversation
06.11.13
What’s the Best Way to Advance Human Rights in the U.S.-China Relationship?
Nicholas Bequelin:
The best way to advance human rights in the U.S.-China relationship is first and foremost to recognize that the engine of human rights progress in China today is the Chinese citizenry itself. Such progress is...
Caixin Media
06.03.13
Trading Companies and the Business of Illusion
Last year, the owner of an export-processing company whom we will call Lin Minyao learned of an easy way to make money in Shenzhen, the port city next to Hong Kong.
Like his fellow traders, Lin said he could set up two shell companies, one...
Is the U.S. About to Become One Big Factory Farm For China?
If Shuanghui International’s purchase of Smithfield is to grease the wheels of trade carrying U.S. hogs to China and its enormous domestic pork market, then we’re looking at the further expansion of factory-scale swine farming here in the U...
Europe and China Trade Talks End Bitterly
China called on the European Union to refrain from imposing tariffs on solar panels, and the European trade commissioner complained that China was pressuring individual countries to prevent Europe from reaching a consensus....
Caixin Media
04.15.13
China Export Policy Chokes on Vitamin Verdict
Internet cafés covered by the city of Wuhan’s Internet Café Association agreed to set minimum prices for online access nearly a decade ago. And more than one hundred coking coal company-members of the Coke Association of Shanxi Province each...
Beijing Opposes U.S. Rule On Technology Imports
The new provision following recent cyberattacks requires NASA, as well as the U.S. Justice and Commerce Departments, to seek approval from national law enforcement officials before buying information technology systems from China....
Conversation
03.01.13
Is America’s Door Really Open to China’s Investment?
Daniel Rosen:
There have not been many new topics in U.S.-China economic relations over the past decade: the trade balance, offshoring of jobs, Chinese holding of U.S. government debt, whether China’s currency is undervalued and...
China Denies It Is World’s Biggest Trader Despite Data Showing It Passed U.S. Last Year
Official Chinese and American trade data indicate China passed the United States last year in total imports and exports by a margin of $3.866 trillion to $3.822 trillion.
Conversation
02.20.13
Cyber Attacks—What’s the Best Response?
With regular ChinaFile Conversation contributor Elizabeth Economy on the road, we turned to her colleague...
Illicit Meth Trade Between China and North Korea Reveals A Lot About Their Relationship
Border police, especially in the North, are known to take bribes to allow illicit trade to pass. One illegal North Korean export causing social problems is crystal meth, a drug known in China as bingdu, or “ice.”
Morgan Stanley's Latest Alibaba Estimates Suggest It's Worth $66 Billion-$168 Billion
The most relevant comparison is to Tencent which is still the biggest Chinese Internet company still experiencing rapid growth – albeit at a slightly slower pace than Alibaba. (Tencent did $1.88 billion in the last year and is currently valued...
China Plays By Its Own Rules While Going Global
When Venezuela seized billions of dollars in assets from Exxon Mobil and other foreign companies, Chinese state banks and investors didn't blink. Over the past five years they have loaned Venezuela more than $35...
A War Between China and Japan: What it Could Cost You
Global economists are keeping their eyes glued to the Asia-Pacific region, where a bitter feud is brewing between two of the world’s most powerful nations over a small collectivity of islands in the East China Sea. The Chinese government argues...
Infographics
02.14.13
Who Supplies Apple? (It’s Not Just China)
Last month, Apple Inc. released its updated list of suppliers. This report says it includes “the major manufacturing locations of suppliers who provide raw materials and components or perform final assembly on Apple.” ChinaFile used this data to...
Beijing Slams U.S. Sanctions on Chinese Companies
Beijing has denounced U.S. sanctions imposed on four Chinese companies and one individual last week for allegedly breaching a U.S. law designed to hamper the development of weapons of mass destruction by Iran, North Korea or Syria.
China’s String of Fake Pearls (Blog)
For the past few years, a low level theme that occasionally pops into my news feed is the idea of greater Sino-Pakistani cooperation. Now this has a certain amount of realpolitik sense to it. The United States and Pakistan are not...
Chinese Hackers Targeted Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal said its computer systems had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers for the apparent purpose of monitoring the newspaper's China coverage.
Eastern Promise in LIttle Africa
Chasing their slice of China’s raging appetite, tens of thousands of African traders are settling uneasily in the ghettos of Guangzhou.
Books
01.24.13
Shangri-La
The legendary Chamagudao, the Tea Horse Road, winds through dizzying mountain passes, across famed rivers like the Mekong and the Yangtze, and past monasteries and meadows in a circuitous route from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in western China to the Tibetan capital city of Lhasa. Actually a network of roads, trails, and highways, rather than one distinct route, the Chamagudao once stretched for almost 1400 miles (2350 km)—a conduit along which the historic trade between the mighty Chinese empire and the nomadic Tibetans linked remote villages and ethnic groups.
Apple and China: A Match Made in Heaven?
China has long played a major role in Apple’s success after it moved much of its manufacturing from the U.S. to China and other Asian nations in the 1990’s.
ODI-lay Hee-ho: China's Overseas Investment
China’s outward direct investment (ODI) exceeded $77 billion in 2012, an increase of 12.6% on the previous year.
Economists React: China's GDP Growth Hits 7.9% in Fourth Quarter
Chinese growth is likely to stabilize around 8% this year after a more than two-year slowdown.
Google Concedes Defeat in Chinese Censorship Battle
U.S. company quietly drops warning message that Chinese users saw when searching for politically sensitive phrases
Caixin Media
12.16.12
Mobile Phones Souring Africa’s Image of China
Every day, about a dozen mobile phone wholesalers field orders and manufacturer offers from offices inside a nondescript, five-story building on Luthuli Avenue in downtown Nairobi.
The building doesn’t look like a hub for global commerce,...
Don’t Underestimate China’s Luxury Market
China’s luxury market — and the global phenomenon of “trading up”— are well known. Yet when China's consumer markets recently experienced short terms blips,...
S.E.C. Probe Puts China Listings in Doubt
The watchdog's look at Chinese affiliates of five U.S. major accounting firms deals a blow to China firms eyeing U.S. captial.
S.E.C. Charges the Chinese Affiliates of 5 Big Accounting Firms
The U.S. financial watchdog says the firms failed to produce work papers from their audits of several China-based companies that are under S.E.C. investigation.
China Overtaking U.S. as Global Trader
In just five years, China has surpassed the U.S. as a trading partner for much of the world. The first story in new Associated Press series on "...
Mr. China Comes to America
Near the end of this year’s second presidential debate, Candy Crowley of CNN pointed out that iPads, iPhones, and other globally sought-after Apple products are all made in China. What would it take, she asked both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama,...
China Will Top U.S. as Biggest Film Market in the World by 2020: Study
Box office haul in China, which now stands as the second-largest film market in the world after Japan, will surpass that in the U.S. by 2020, according to Ernst & Young.
China’s Xi May Unveil Plan for Change Late 2013, CICC Head Says
China’s new leadership, headed by Xi Jinping, will probably unveil new market-oriented changes in late 2013, according to Li Jiange, head of the country’s biggest investment bank.
Li,...
China Film Regulator: Don't Blame us for Hollywood Hiccups
Beijing says it was the market that decided to bar imported films from domestic cinemas this summer, not film regulators.
Debating China’s Economic Future
Is China’s economic growth destined to plunge down to 3% to 4% a year, or can it be sustained in the current 7% to 8% range? China Real Time has asked heavyweight experts Michael Pettis of Peking University...
China Leads in Foreign Direct Investment
China reclaiming from the FDI leadership had as much to do with the fall off in FDI into the U.S. as it had to do with events in China.
When Madison Met Handan – A Tale of Two Cities
It’s unlikely that many of the 60 Chinese investors who visited Madison in September had heard of the Wisconsin state capital and home of the University of Wisconsin Badgers before agreeing to visit the U.S. Similarly the city of Handan, the...
'Iron Man 3': First Footage Reveals New Villian, No China
Much touted Disney-Marvel film co-production with Beijing-based studio DMG may ring hollow.
Europe and China Don't Need a Trade War: EU Trade Chief
De Gucht says EU won't back down from fight againt ...
Romney Can Invoke Japan Overtaking China as U.S. Lender
China is poised to lose its place as the U.S.’s biggest creditor for the first time since the height of the financial crisis, blunting one of Mitt Romney’s...
American Politics and Chinese Data
In the midst of increasingly heated election rhetoric about China, Beijing has released some important economic data as its currency hits record highs. Both ...
China Economic Figures Shore Up Global Markets
Markets rose Monday on news of China's Sept. inflation falling to 1.9 percent from 2 percent in Aug.
Chinese Direct Investment in California
Asia Society
To build the case for a robust response to these opportunities and looming risks, this report analyzes Chinese investment in California in depth, mining a unique database for insights about California’s comparative advantages, the Chinese firms...
As Romney Repeats Trade Message, Bain Maintains China Ties
China-related holdings by funds in which Mr. Romney has invested are a reminder of how he inhabits two worlds.