Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, Chinese President Xi Jinping made what could become the most significant change to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to date, pledging Beijing “will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.” This announcement, depending on how it is interpreted and implemented, could mark a watershed moment in China’s overseas investment practices. While this is a welcome step, it is far more important for Chi ...

Even before the Taliban took control of Kabul, China started deepening diplomatic ties with the group, hosting a Taliban delegation in July. Since then, Chinese officials have said that Beijing respects Afghans’ right to decide their future, implying that the Taliban’s victory reflects the people’s will.     What kind of relationship will Beijing have with the Taliban? Beijing’s relationship with the Taliban will be twofold. First, it wil ...

The market capitalisations of several of China's major tech companies have taken a severe beating in the last few weeks.   On the face of it, it seems strange. A national government deliberately and effectively wiping billions of dollars of value from a group of companies that at one time had been grouped together under the banner of “national champions.” Big Tech in China has taken a pummelling on the markets in recent weeks, but not because trading condition ...

China’s private education companies had for years been the darlings of investors from New York to Shanghai, building a $100 billion industry on the promise of the world’s largest and arguably most-competitive schooling system. Then they got caught up in the Chinese government’s sweeping efforts to rein in the country’s technology giants, with a regulatory clampdown unveiled in July after months of rumbling that threatens to put an end to years of out-sized growth. The  ...

For nearly 60 years, the preeminent Asian power in Central America was not the People’s Republic of China, but Taiwan. Yet in rapid succession starting in 2017, Panama, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador surprised many by switching their diplomatic recognition to Beijing, joining Costa Rica, which had done so in 2007. While four Central American nations remain today within Taiwan’s shrinking circle of international supporters – Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and, curiously, ...

China's ride hailing company Didi Chuxing raised about $4 billion in its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), priced at the top range. Based on the listing, Didi's market valuation will hit a record $67 billion.  Under the IPO Didi issued 288 million American Depository Shares (AD), priced at $14 each, equivalent to 72 million shares of Class A common stock on the NYSE. It is the largest IPO by a Chinese firm in the US stock market since 2014 when Chi ...

Moves by the Chinese central bank and government officials to curtail the use of Bitcoin and other digital currencies stretches back almost to their inception. The last week has seen crypto markets battered by news that the Chinese government is firmly clamping down on digital currencies within its borders.   Multiple provinces, many of which host large crypto mining operations, have moved to ban or severely restrict the ability of the industry to operate in compliance with the m ...

Earlier this month, one of China's largest conglomerates held a conference in Beijing to address what the company plans to do in support of the government's environmental targets.   One by one, every one of the company's dozens of large subsidiaries, from its financial arms to its specialty steelmaking unit, announced ambitious goals.   Such events are now a feature of corporate life in China. Beijing's ambitious plans to move to peak carbon emissions ...

The Chinese government has unveiled the summary of the country’s five-year plan for 2021 to 2025, amid a heavy smog in Beijing. Among other things, the plan sets a target of “basically eliminating” heavy air pollution days by 2025.   As China is responsible for almost 30% of global energy sector CO2 emissions, and emissions have returned to growth in recent years, the new plan gives critical insight into how fast the country is planning to start limiting emissio ...

China’s annual National People’s Congress parliamentary session will take place in March to approve the country’s social and economic development plans for the period 2021-25. This 14th Five-Year Plan (Plan) will be released against a backdrop of a challenging domestic economy, an increasingly complex international environment, and China’s plans to play a bigger role in the global economy.   An outline of the Plan was released late last year,  ...

A slew of Chinese startups went public in 2020, and it looks like Chinese tech IPOs will keep booming through 2021. Three of China's "four AI dragons" (AI四小龙) are almost certain to go public this year. Some of China's biggest unicorns, such as ByteDance and Didi Chuxing, are also likely to join them. Here are the China tech IPOs you need to know for 2021.     Companies gearing up for IPOs Megvii One of China's largest facial-r ...

2020 was not an easy year for Chinese tech companies. Officials around the world became warier of the potential national security threats posed by their growing power. A slew of bans, restrictions, and sanctions on Chinese tech companies strengthened China’s resolve to shore up indigenous innovation and self-reliance. And while the Biden administration will likely take a more measured policy approach than the Trump administration, it is unlikely that things will get much easier for ...

In 2008, Alibaba founder Jack Ma famously declared, “if the banks don’t change, we will change the banks.” His words sparked an entrepreneurial renaissance in China’s fintech industry. ‘Fintech’ (金融科技), a portmanteau of financial technology, refers to the application of new technologies to “improve and automate the delivery of financial services.” Since Ma’s pronouncement, mainland China has produced eight fintech ‘unicorns,& ...

Chinese electric automaker NIO will use NVIDIA DRIVE for advanced automated driving technology in its future fleets, marking the genesis of truly intelligent and personalized NIO vehicles.   During a global reveal event, the EV maker took the wraps off its latest ET7 sedan, which starts shipping in 2022 and features a new NVIDIA-powered supercomputer, called Adam, that uses NVIDIA DRIVE Orin to deploy advanced automated driving technology.    ...

Should the EU – China Investment agreement be ratified, European companies should receive preferential market access in a number of these sectors in China and Chinese companies will be permitted to push forward on their green energy and NEV investment strategies into the EU. The Key elements of the agreement are layed out below.   The cumulative EU foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from the EU to China over the last 20 years have reached more than €1 ...

Asia may be leading the transformation in B2B e-commerce but there are still untapped opportunities. If 2020 becomes known as the year e-commerce erupted, then Asia will be remembered as the epicentre of the transformation. In a region that was already emerging as the global hub for e-commerce in 2019 – the top seven countries for online consumer spending growth were all in Asia – the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the pace.   Now, as broadband access widens, 5G ne ...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Africa was supposed to be China’s new stomping grounds. Instead, the novel coronavirus has spawned a growing backlash that threatens to unwind the ties Beijing has carefully cultivated over decades.   The trigger for the burgeoning diplomatic crisis: Anger over the treatment of African citizens living in China and frustration at Beijing’s position on granting debt relief to fight against the outbreak.   China has spent untold ...

The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), known as the "China Tianyan", has officially begun the search for extraterrestrial civilizations, looking for signals from intelligent life deep in the universe, the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said today.     The search for and monitoring of radio pulsars is a core scientific objective of FAST. And the search for extraterrestrial civilizations is one of the scientific g ...