Not researching business registration laws Building a subsidiary in a new country, especially one as legally complex as China, is a massive undertaking both in terms of time and money. You can either choose to hire individual consultants and law firms to guide you in different steps or complete the entire process on your own.   While the government incorporation costs to register a Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise or WFOE isn't much, and you'd be tempted to do it yours ...

China, the world’s largest importer of corn and soybean, seems finally to accept the potential of using genetically modified (GM) feed crops. Will this be enough to reduce China’s dependency on such imports and will it meet the demands of other countries that are also experiencing an increase in demand for feed to increase production of animal meat?     Asia’s enormous appetite for meat has fuelled an equally large demand for animal feed, ...

China will resume outbound group tours for Chinese citizens to another 40 countries including Nepal, Vietnam, Iran, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Brazil starting from March 15, China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Friday. It is the second batch of destinations in China's pilot program for out-bound group tours, after the country resumed cross-border group tours to the first batch of 20 countries and regions on February 6. The move to expand the number of d ...

Critical technologies already underpin the global economy and our society. From the energy-efficient microprocessors in smartphones to the security that enables online banking and shopping, these technologies are ubiquitous and essential. They’re unlocking green energy production and supporting medical breakthroughs. They’re also the basis for military capability on the battlefield, are underpinning new hybrid warfare techniques and can give intelligence agencies a major edge over ...

A shrinking population and growing dependency ratio could halt Beijing's ascendanc.   Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz declared almost a decade ago that 2014 “was the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world’s largest economic power.”   It was, he claimed, the start of the “Chinese century”.   He was wrong: the US remains the world’s largest economy. Yet ...

Since AI has become essential to national interest, China may not be willing to leave its development in the hands of private companies.   With the recent releases of large-language models, such as ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) capability has leapfrogged, attracting intense attention around the globe. Inspired by the success of ChatGPT, many Chinese technology companies, such as Baidu, rushed to announce their own plans for developing a Chinese version of ChatGPT. How ...

China’s GDP expanded at its slowest pace since the mid-1970s bar the Covid-hit 2020 year, as the world’s second-largest economy struggled under tight pandemic restrictions that were abruptly ditched late in 2022.   The economy grew 3% last year, well shy of the 5.5% pace the government had targeted at the start of the year and the 8.1% recorded for 2021. The actual rate though, was better than the 2.7% predicted by the World Bank earlier this month.   Ana ...

China’s economic growth profile in 2023 will be characterised by a weaker first six months and a stronger second half. As in other Asian economies that lifted zero-covid policies, re‑opening will not result in an immediate acceleration of growth, as a surging viral caseload causes disruption to supply chains and consumption. However, after a difficult first quarter, China’s economic momentum will probably build in the second quarter, before a ...

The Hurun Research Institute released the Hurun Largest Foreign & HK/Macao/Taiwan Companies in China 2022, a list of those 100 foreign & HK/Macao/Taiwan companies with the greatest contribution to China's economy, based on their sales and the number of employees in China. This is the second year of the list.       Between them, the 100 Hurun Largest Foreign & HK/Macao/Taiwan Companies in China had ...

China is back on a pragmatic path, with the lifting of zero-COVID and property market policies that throttled domestic demand in 2022. COVID cases are likely to continue to rise in the coming months, but that is unlikely to disrupt progress towards living with the virus, and an economic recovery in the second half of 2023.   Why I’m Bullish I’d like to explain why I’ve gone from being cautiously optimistic about Xi Jinping returning to a pragmatic path, to n ...

Saudi Arabia and China signed a strategic partnership agreement on Thursday during a visit by the Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the kingdom, underlining the growing ties between Beijing and a longstanding American ally that is seeking greater self-reliance.   Mr. Xi held talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 37, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, in the first of a series of summits planned for the Chinese president’s three-day visit. After his bilateral meetings with ...

As Apple has accelerates its plans to move some of its production outside of China, the country’s share of global exports of furniture, footwear and clothing accessories continues to fall, highlighting a trend stared in 2016.   The anti-lockdown unrest gripping China has forced the authorities in Beijing to respond by easing some restrictions in big manufacturing centres, as they map out a “new stage and mission”. There are concerns that more freedom of movement ...

NIO Inc. designs, develops, manufactures, and sells smart electric vehicles in China. NIO Inc. is a pioneer and a leading company in the premium smart electric vehicle market. Founded in November 2014, the company was formerly known as NextEV Inc. and changed its name to NIO Inc. in July 2017.     NIO has established R&D centers, manufacturing, sales and service facilities in Shanghai, Hefei, Beijing, Nanjing, San Jose, Munich, Oxford, Oslo and other places. Fur ...

It’s easier to talk about what China’s social credit system isn’t than what it is. Ever since 2014, when China announced a six-year plan to build a system to reward actions that build trust in society and penalize the opposite, it has been one of the most misunderstood things about China in Western discourse. Now, with new documents released in mid-November, there’s an opportunity to correct the record.   For most people outside China, the ...

The last ten years witnessed the US’ return to a reliance on industrial policy, which ironically is more in keeping with the approach taken in China. Already Morris Chang of TSMC fame has pointed out the limitations of trying to attract companies like TSMC to establish fabs in the US because of a lack of comparative advantage in terms of costs and skills. It will take some years to get such fabs up and running and even then they are likely to contribute only a small part of the overall  ...

Peking opera is a performance art incorporating singing, reciting, acting, martial arts. Although widely practised throughout China, its performance centres on Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century. The form was extremely popular in the Qing court and has come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China.            ...

While China’s president, Xi Jinping, is widely expected to secure his coveted third term as party chief at the upcoming 20th congress of the Communist Party of China, the future of his flagship economic foreign policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), deserves closer observation. XUE GONG argues that China’s connectivity project may be set back by three factors: unresolved sustainability issues, geopolitical shocks, and Beijing’s shrinking capacity for bankrolling the BRI ...

Jinko Solar, headquartered in Shanghai, is one of the world’s largest solar module manufacturers. It started out as a wafer manufacturer in 2006, and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010. Since its inception, Jinko has been working on developing a vertically integrated supply chain, which has helped it establish its dominant position in the solar industry. The company now produces mono wafers, solar cells, and solar modules. It was named as one of the top 50 Forbes China M ...