Resources

Want to sell a product or target visitors in China, in which case you will need a China server for your website. Whilst there are hundreds of hosting platform with a data center in USA, Europe, and Asia, you have limited choices in China.

If you are looking to do business in China you really need to host your site locally to ensure speed of user access, Regulatory compliance, better search engine rankings and to ensure that your site is withing the Great Chinese Firewall.

Lastly be aware that hosting in China is more expensive than in another region.

The list below commprises the main hosting providers with data centers in China.

A word of Warning: Unfortunately most of the following mentioned sites are in the Chinese language. So be ready to use a translation tool if Chinese is not your language.

1. AWS

AWS (Amazon Web Services) has collaborated with a local partner to offer cloud services. Currently, AWS is available in the following locations.

• Beijing
• Ningxia

You won’t see all the products offered in China as you may see in AWS global. However, it got sufficient list of products to fit from small to enterprise level of applications.

If you are looking for a vast range of products and cost-effective solutions, then AWS would be a good choice.

2. Sino Hosting

One of the popular one out there offers shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers. Sino got servers in the following locations.

• Shanghai
• Beijing
• Changsha
• Hong Kong

You can get it started with shared hosting from less than $10 per month. Sino provides one-click software installation like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, etc.

Support is available in English and provides ten days refund for shared hosting.

3. Alibaba Cloud

Need more coverage in Mainland China?

Probably Alibaba Cloud has got the highest number of data center locations in China.

• Hangzhou
• Shanghai
• Qingdao
• Beijing
• Zhangjiakou
• Shenzhen
• Hong Kong

If you are not from China and need support on ICP application, then Alibaba Cloud would be a lifesaver.

Similar to AWS, Alibaba Cloud offers a full range of infrastructure services like CDN, VM, load balancer, database, backup, storage, etc

4. GZIDC

GZIDC provide a large number of hosting related services including the following.

• Web hosting
• Domain registration
• Cloud services
• Host rental
• and much more…

Under cloud services, you can choose to host your applications in the following multi-line DC.

• Guangdong
• South and North China
• Hong Kong

5. Western Digital

West is another popular offer all-in-one hosting solution. With more than 15 years in the industry, West has a good name in support and uptime.

6. HA Bang Net

Optimized Hosting for WordPress, HaBangNet server is located in Beijing.

The starter plan cost around $10 per month, and it comes with cPanel where you can install your favorite software like Joomla, WordPress, etc.

In starter plan, you get 5GB SSD storage, one free domain, 100GB bandwidth, etc.

7. Jinshan Cloud

Jinshan cloud is one of the top three public clouds in China. They got multiple products.

• Server
• Database
• Object storage
• CDN
• Load balancing
• Security-related
• Video solution
• Web application firewall

Jinshan is available with 19 data centers.

8. Tencent

Tencent cloud is trusted by more than 10,000 developers worldwide including popular products in China like QQ, WeChat.

Provisioning servers and other cloud services are easy with Tencent, and you pay for what you use.

If you are a startup or running existing business in a traditional data center, it would be worth to include Tencent in the list while moving the Cloud for lower cost.

9. Baidu Cloud

Baidu is not just a Google search competitor but also the Cloud. You can choose to host in Beijing, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Hong Kong.

Similar go to GCP, Baidu Cloud has many IaaS products like compute, networking, storage, database, big data, AI, etc.

10. UCloud

Ucloud has served more than 50,000 enterprise customers and got 21 global data center including 5 in China.

It has a function rich control panel to manage cloud services and recently container services. You can also use their pricing calculator to estimate the cost of required cloud services.

Once you’ve set up your own company, you can start to hire Chinese staff, but to do that you’ll need to register them for China’s social welfare programs. Here’s an introduction to some of the rules concerning the recruitment of Chinese labor: whereas hiring foreign staff requires one to apply to the authorities to get them a work visa and work permit, and you are automatically eligible to hire Chinese as soon as you finish registering your employees’ social welfare accounts, as outlined below.

What are the Five ‘Insurances’ Plus the Housing Fund?

• Pension: Cost to Company is usually 20% of the Employee’s salary, substantially lower in some cities and cost to the Employee is usually 8% of the Employee’s salary, uniform rate nationwide.
• Medical Insurance: Cost to Company is usually between 7%-12% of the salary, substantially lower in some cities and cost to the Employee is usually 2% of the Employee’s salary, substantially lower in some cities.
• Work-Related Injury Insurance: Cost to Company from 0.4%-3% of salary depending on the location and degree of danger of business engaged in and cost to the Employee ‘ No contribution required.
• Unemployment Insurance: Cost to Company is usually 2% of salary but sometimes 1% and only 0.4% in Shenzhen and cost to the Employee is usually 1% of the Employee’s salary.
• Maternity Insurance: Cost to Company from 0.5% of salary depending on location (no contribution at all in Dongguan). Cost to the Company.
• Housing Fund: Contribution towards Housing Funds are mandatory and come from both the Company and the Employee determined by local Government, Housing Fund regulations apply to the Employees in all geographic regions of the country. Contributions must be calculated based on each Employee’s average monthly wage over the last year. The actual percentage differs per city or province.

Registering for your employees’ social welfare accounts

Go to your local Social Insurance Management Center to set up an account for your company. Each city will usually have one of these in each district. For the addresses of the first-tier Chinese cities, look towards the bottom of this article.

You will need the following documents to set up the account:

1. The original copy of your company’s business license, and a photocopy 
2. The original copy of your company’s organization code certificate, and a photocopy 
3. A stamp by your company chop
4. Company Registration Form of Social Insurance; you can get this at the center
5. The company bank account number
6. The company’s tax registration number
7. A commitment letter of use social insurance card signed, which you can obtain at the center

You can now start employing Chinese staff!

Registering your employees onto the employment record

Next, you need go to the local Human Resource and Social Security Bureau to register your employees onto the employment record.

You will need the following documents:

1. The original copy of your company’s business license, and a photocopy 
2. The original copy of your company’s organization code certificate, and a photocopy 
3. Your company’s official “chop” (aka stamp or seal)
4. Completed registration form of employment record with your new employees’ names and a brief introduction of each of them. You can get this in the bureau and it should be completed in triplicate; one should be submitted with the above documents at the Human Resource and Social Security Bureau, one copy should be submitted when you return to the Social Insurance Management Center (see below), and one should be kept for your company’s files.

Registering the employees

Now you must actually register your specific employees. You will only need to do the above two procedures the first time you employ a Chinese person; the following procedure applies for each Chinese person you hire from then on. Return to the Social Insurance Management Center with the following documents to register the employee (or, if they already have a social insurance card, use the following documents to change their employer’s information to your company).

1. Company Registration Form of Social Insurance 
2. Employee Personal Information Registration Form; you can get this at the talent center in the district where the company is registered (for first-tier-city addresses, see bottom of article)
3. A list of all the employees at your company
4. The original copy of your company’s business license, and a photocopy
5. The original copy of your local tax registration certificate, and a photocopy
6. A spreadsheet showing how much your employees are paid, how much is paid into their insurance and housing fund, and any bonuses they have been paid
7. Photocopy of insured employees’ ID cards

It takes about two months to get the new employee’s social insurance card ready, but they can begin working straight away and you will need to start paying into their social security account from their very first paycheck. 

Registering your employees with the housing fund

You can do this at any point in the process outlined above, or afterward. Go to the local Public Housing Fund Management Center (you can find addresses for the first-tier cities towards the bottom of this article) to set up a housing fund account. You will need the following documents, and it will take five working days to process: 

1. Public Housing Fund Deposit Form, which you can get at the center 
2. Your company’s business license and a photocopy 
3. Your company’s organization code certificate and a photocopy 

Once the account is set up, you can place your employees’ personal accounts under your company account. The documents needed to do this are: 

1. Personal Housing Fund Account Set-up Form, which you can get at the center
2. A photocopy of the employee’s ID card

How to transfer your employees’ personal archives

Every Chinese citizen at birth is given a personal archive, which is stored at the same local talent center where their hukou is registered. When people move home from area to area – for study or for employment – their personal archives are transferred along with them, to the relevant talent center. 

In order for the employee to get a Personal Archive Transfer Letter, you should give them a letter (with your company’s official stamp or “chop”) stating that they work for your company, as well as a stamped copy of your company’s license. They will then take this to the talent center in which your company is registered (depending on the size of the city in which your business is registered, this will either be a city talent center or a district talent center). 

After the talent center has given them the Personal Archive Transfer Letter, the employee should take it and their ID card to the talent center where their personal archive is stored; the transfer will then be processed.

Last week saw The Communist Party of China (CPC) unveiled a new leadership line-up for the next 5 years. Xi Jinping was again elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, leading its seven-seat Political Bureau Standing Committee. The other six members of the top leadership are Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng. For the first time, all Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau were born after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Personal Profiles of the Standing Committee:

Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping, 64, retains his spot on top of the Party pecking order, entering his second term as General Secretary and third term on the PSC.

Xi is considered China’s most powerful leader since at least Deng Xiaoping, and perhaps even Mao Zedong. At the 19^th Party Congress, he became the only leader besides Mao to have his name written into the Party constitution while living. Last year, he earned the designation of “core leader” of the Party, a title his predecessor Hu Jintao did not obtain.

Xi also holds the titles of President of the People’s Republic of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Born in Beijing, he is the son of Party legend Xi Zhongxun. During the Cultural Revolution, he lived in a cave and performed manual labor in Shaanxi province. Before rising to the PSC in 2007, Xi held leadership positions in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, as well as a brief stop in Shanghai.

Li Keqiang

Li Keqiang, 62, continues to hold the number two position on the PSC as Premier of the State Council, China’s cabinet. The position makes him head of the Chinese government and economic affairs.

Li holds a PhD in economics from China’s prestigious Peking University, and is known to hold more market-oriented policy preferences than many others in the Party. He rose through Party ranks as a member of the Communist Youth League, and was a protégé of former president Hu Jintao, who reportedly wanted Li to be his successor.

Prior to joining the PSC alongside Xi in 2007, Li held leadership posts in Henan province from 2002 to 2004 and Liaoning province from 2004 to 2007. He was born in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province.

Although he carries several responsibilities as Premier, including instituting economic reforms and combatting pollution, he is generally considered less powerful than his predecessors Wen Jiabao and Zhu Rongji.

Li Zhanshu

Li Zhanshu enters the PSC as the third-ranking member. He is a trusted associate of Xi, having been his chief of staff since 2012. At 67 years old, he narrowly avoided the age cut-off to join the PSC.

With his ascension to the PSC, Li is expected to head the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament. Currently, he is the Director of the General Office of the Communist Party of China and Chief of the General Office of the National Security Commission.

Li first met Xi when the two held Party positions in Hebei province, where he was born, in the 1980s. Li later held leadership positions in Heilongjiang and Guizhou provinces, as well as in the city of Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi province.

Wang Yang

Wang Yang, 62, is the fourth-ranking member of the new PSC. He will reportedly take the position of Chairman of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference, China’s top political advisory body.

Currently, Wang is China’s Vice Premier. Along with Li Keqiang, he is widely considered one of the most liberal reformers among China’s leadership, and is also connected to former president Hu Jintao.

Wang is credited with being instrumental in the development of Chongqing, where he was Party Secretary from 2005 to 2007. From 2007 to 2012, he was Party Secretary of Guangdong province, which has the highest GDP and largest population of China’s provinces.

Wang Huning

Wang Huning, 62, emerged from the 19^th Party Congress ranking fifth on the PSC. Wang has long been considered one of the Party’s top political theorists, and will head ideology, propaganda, and party organization.

He is currently the Director of the Central Policy Research Office, which is responsible for drafting the guiding theories and ideology of the Party.

Wang is widely considered to have been essential in forming the former president Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” theory, Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Development” theory, as well as Xi’s “China Dream” and “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”.

Wang rose to prominence through a brief but prolific career as an academic at Shanghai’s Fudan University, where he wrote on both foreign and domestic affairs. He is considered a close confidante of Xi, with whom his theory of “neo-authoritarianism” and tough stance on corruption has proved highly influential.

Zhao Leji

Zhao Leji, 60, enters the PSC in the sixth spot. He is poised to take over Wang Qishan’s role as Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, making him China’s anti-corruption czar.

Currently, Zhao is the head of the powerful Organization Department of the Central Committee, which manages personnel and promotions within the Party.

From 2003 to 2007, Zhao was Party Secretary of Qinghai province, where he was born, and from 2007 to 2012 was the Party Secretary of Shaanxi province. Zhao’s connections to Shaanxi province, where is family is originally from, are believed to be how he formed ties with Xi, with whom he is a strong supporter.

Han Zheng

Han Zheng, 63, takes the seventh and final spot on the PSC. He is tipped to take over the role of Executive Vice Premier.

Han has deep ties to Shanghai, where he was born, grew up, and attended university. He was Mayor of Shanghai from 2003 to 2012, and acting Party Secretary of Shanghai from 2006 to 2007. He succeeded Xi as Shanghai’s full time Party Secretary in 2012.

Han was known as a close associate of Jiang Zemin, who also has strong ties to Shanghai. He became acquainted with Xi when the two overlapped in Shanghai, with Han as Mayor and Xi and Party Secretary.

Whether you’re a full-time inventor or just someone with a really good idea, don’t wait around to patent your inventions and designs – because if you do, you risk having it stolen away from you, with no way to get it back.

You can register your patent within China through the State Intellectual Property Office. And because China is one of the 176 member countries of the Paris Convention on the Protection of Industrial Property, patents registered in China enjoy a “priority right” when being registered in other countries. This means that within 12 months (for invention patents) or six months (for patents based on exterior design appearance) of applying in China, the owner can apply for patents in other member countries within Paris Convention at the same time, with each country’s registration date for the foreign patents being backdated to when it was first given within China. 

Alternatively, if you want to get an internationally effective patent from the beginning, you can choose to apply for the PCT patent protocol. This is supervised by the World Intellectual Property Organization, of which China is a member country. This option (as an alternative to just registering in China) will be given to you during the registration process. If you choose to follow the PCT protocol then your patent will be automatically registered in all member countries, including China. However, this method costs more money and means a longer wait for the patent to be granted.

Step-by-step guide

1. If you want to register a patent you should make sure that nobody else has had the same idea. To do that you’ll need to search the State Intellectual Property Office’s database of patents that have already been registered – you can check that out by clicking here.
2. After making sure that your patent is still available for registration, you have to prepare two copies of each of the following documents: 
           •    A patent statement describing what it is you’re patenting and how it works/looks
   
           •    Abstract and accompanying diagram (if applicable) 
   
           •    Specification and accompanying diagram (if applicable)
   
           •    The rights you wish to claim for the patent (who owns it, whether the rights are to be transferred, who receives profits on the patent etc)

1. After preparing all files needed, you can post all files to the State Intellectual Property Office (the postal address is listed at the bottom of this article), or hand-deliver to reception offices in some cities in China.
2. The application fee can be paid at one of the offices when hand-delivering files, through a bank transfer, or through a postal transfer. If you post the application documents, a fee should be paid after the applicant receiving notice of acceptance from the office.

Postal address of State Intellectual Property Office

State Intellectual Property Office, No. 6, Xitucheng lu, Jimen qiao, Haidian district, Beijing.

北京市海淀区蓟门桥西土城路6号国家知识产权局专利局受理处

Post code: 100088

Contact: 010-6208-5588 / 6208-5599 / 6235-6655

www.http://english.sipo.gov.cn

www.http://www.sipo.gov.cn

In 2017 Chinese authorities begun offering tax incentives to encourage middle-class families to purchase private health insurance. Beginning July 1, individuals who buy eligible insurance products can reduce person income tax by up to 2,400 yuan a year.

The tax cuts fall under a host of reforms aimed at rethinking health care provision for the nation’s vast and aging population. For most people in China, health care means public hospitals; treatment is partly paid out of pocket and partly reimbursed through compulsory insurance provided by their employers or state pension. Reforms aim to give patients more choices and ease the burden on the public purse.

Market solutions are playing an increasing role in health care: According to state news agency Xinhua, the number of private hospitals in China more than doubled from 2010 to 2015. By the end of 2015, there were 14,500 private hospitals, accounting for 52.7 percent of total hospitals in the country. The government hopes that greater uptake of private health insurance, alongside the rapid growth of private medicine, will reduce pressure on overworked, overcrowded public hospitals.

The private health insurance sector is thriving. From 2013 to 2014, total medical insurance premiums increased 41%, from RMB112.3 billion to RMB158.7 billion, rising another 52.5% to RMB241.1 billion in 2015. According to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), 5 insurance companies specialize in health insurance and another 100 offer health insurance products, including 28 foreign life insurance companies. CIRC reported more than 2,300 health insurance products in the market

But public awareness of and consumer confidence in private health insurance is low, even among those who can afford it — and most of the products eligible for tax cuts under the recent policy still only reimburse treatment at public hospitals.

There are two main types of private health insurance on the mainland: The more popular products are life insurance-like critical illness policies that pay out lump sums if the policyholder is diagnosed with certain conditions. If the holder makes no claims within a set period, their premiums will be returned with interest, meaning the policy operates as a form of investment or retirement plan in addition to offering indemnity. On the other hand, health insurance policies that reimburse treatment are often seen as a waste of money, as there is no return if the holder makes no claims — though these policies typically offer more comprehensive coverage.

Only about one in 20 people in China has a reimbursement health insurance policy, according to a 2016 joint report by global business consultancy Boston Consulting Group and reinsurance company Munich Re. Though the market for private health insurance saw consistent year-on-year growth of around 31 percent between 2010 and 2015, more than 70 percent of its 241 billion-yuan value in 2015 was made up of critical illness policies. But as indemnity policies for critical illness do little to support the growth of China’s burgeoning private hospital sector, authorities are working to promote private reimbursement health insurance that covers outpatient consultations as well as inpatient treatment.

Tax incentives for purchasing private health insurance were piloted in 31 cities including Shanghai and Beijing beginning Jan. 1, 2016, but only a handful of domestic insurance companies have offered eligible products. Most of the eligible insurance products target employers rather than individuals.

The report above forecasts that the market for private health insurance in China will increase fivefold between 2015 and 2020, and that reimbursement policies will see the fastest growth. Government tax incentives can help foster the mindset that health insurance is necessary and financially advantageous: once people buy the incentivized insurance, they are more likely to research and consider other private health insurance options in the future.

Chinese private insurers

The number of foreign companies in the Chinese market is increasing, but the dominant players in China’s private health insurance market are large domestic insurers. The three largest health insurers are Ping An Health Insurance Company, PICC Health Insurance Company and China Life Insurance. China Life is the largest domestic life insurance company (and the world’s largest life insurer), with 10% of its total premium income derived from health insurance. Other large Chinese health insurance companies include Hexie Health Insurance Company, which is part of the Anbang Insurance Group and Kunlun Health Insurance Company.

By Saurav Bhattacharyya for China Brain

When it comes to appearing to a Chinese audience on the internet, there are multiple factors about your website you need to consider: your host servers location and domain suffix being two of the most important.

For businesses and websites wanting to reach a Chinese audience within Mainland China, the preferable option is to host within Mainland China. The reason for this relates not so much on geo-targeting, as it does in the majority of western countries, but more about control. When the servers are within China, through approved Chinese hosting providers, using approved Chinese ISPs (all government run) this makes monitoring of the sites content a lot more manageable. This is a main reason why Google is more or less a redundant search engine within China. However in order to run a website within China to a Chinese audience, you are required to submit an application to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for an ICP license (Internet Content Provider). This application needs to be approved and the ICP number displayed on your website: most commonly you can find this number in the footer of a websites. This ICP can be obtained from http://www.miibeian.gov.cn

China Domain names

Similar to how location based search works in the western world, a country code top level domain (ccTLD) is a still a very beneficial element in ranking with in China. Ensuring you have a .cn domain will go a long way to ranking well organically in China.

Recently the registration of China .cn and com.cn domains opened up to both individuals and businesses outside of China. Registration is now possible by providing the following documentation:

Businesses outside of China must provide the following:

• Business registration number
• A scanned copy of the registrant’s business certificate
• A scanned copy of the registrant's proof of identity
• A scanned copy of a signed Letter of Commitment

Individuals only need to provide two of these items:

• A scanned copy of their proof of identity
• A scanned copy of a signed Letter of Commitment

The .com or .cn question

Generally non Chinese businesses should always register both the .com and .cn domains to specify that they are both international and well as operating in China. Additionally .com domains are often seen as more trustworthy in the eyes of Chinese consumers. Shorter domains are always better since they are easier to remember. If you use several English words in your domain: placing hyphens in between words will make it easier for Chinese Internet users to remember as well as providing good keyword definition for search engines.

Hosting in Hong Kong

If you are unable to get your site hosted on the mainland, Hong Kong is both a viable and effective option, which also has the added benefit of allowing your site be fast for International users. Having a website hosted on a Hong Kong server would not require and ICP number and is generally as fast as a Mainland server. Unfortunately this method would slightly reduce a sites organic search engine ranking on Chinese search engines such as Baidu (site performance is a major component in their ranking algorithm. So provided the site loads well and quickly for Chinese users, this is not a major issue).

Finally there are a few points to take up with your web developer whilst designing a site for the China market:

• Do not utilise western platform functionality i.e: Google Maps, Google API, YouTube video, Facebook or Disqus plugins

• Limit or completely eliminate the use of externally pointing social functionality i.e: Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter

• Limit your external linking to other non-Chinese sites, especially to sites with potentially banned content

• Avoid shared hosting: if someone with the same IP address as your site is blocked, then your website will also be blocked. Use a dedicated server or VPS with a unique IP.

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Saurav Bhattacharyya is the Managing Director of China Web Designers, a Beijing based web design and development company.

At the start of 2017, China announced that it would invest $360 billion in renewable energy by 2020 and scrap plans to build 85 coal-fired power plants. In March, Chinese authorities reported that the country was already exceeding official targets for energy efficiency, carbon intensity, and the share of clean energy sources. And just last month, China’s energy regulator, the National Energy Administration, rolled out new measures to reduce the country’s dependence on coal.

These are just the latest indicators that China is at the center of a global energy transformation, which is being driven by technological change and the falling cost of renewables. But China is not just investing in renewables and phasing out coal. It also accounts for a growing share of global energy demand, meaning that its economy’s continuing shift toward service- and consumption-led growth will reshape the resource sector worldwide.

At the same time, various other factors are reducing global resource consumption, including increased energy efficiency in residential, industrial, and commercial buildings, and lower demand for energy in transportation, owing to the proliferation of autonomous vehicles and ride sharing.

According to Beyond the Supercycle: How Technology Is Reshaping Resources, a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), these trends are slowing the growth of primary energy demand. If rapid adoption of new technologies continues, that demand could peak in 2025. And with less intensive energy use and increased efficiency, energy productivity in the global economy could increase by 40-70% over the next two decades.

While global growth in energy demand is slowing, China’s share of that demand is increasing. By 2035, China may account for 28% of the world’s primary energy demand, up from 23% today, whereas the United States could account for just 12% by 2035, down from 16% today.

China has already made significant progress in reducing its resource intensity: between 1980 and 2010, its economy grew 18-fold, but its energy consumption grew only fivefold. According to World Bank data, that reflects a 70% decline in energy intensity per unit of GDP.

In its 13th Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government aims to reduce energy intensity by a total of 15% between 2016 and 2020. It is already well on its way toward achieving that goal. At China's National People’s Congress earlier this year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reported that China’s energy intensity fell by 5% last year alone. Renewables are one reason for China’s declining resource intensity. Hoping to become a world leader in the field, China is already investing more than $100 billion in domestic renewables every year. That is twice the level of US investment in domestic renewable energy and more than the combined annual investment of the US and the European Union.

In addition, China is investing $32 billion – more than any other country – in renewables overseas, with top-tier Chinese companies increasingly taking the lead in global renewable-energy value chains. China’s State Grid Corporation has plans to develop an energy grid that draws on wind turbines and solar panels from around the world. Chinese solar-panel manufacturers are estimated to have a 20% cost advantage over their US peers, owing to economies of scale and more advanced supply-chain development. And Chinese wind-turbine manufacturers, having gradually closed technology gaps, now account for more than 90% of the Chinese domestic market, up from just 25% in 2002.

These trends suggest that China will be a major source of both energy demand and cutting-edge technology, implying that it will have a unique opportunity to provide global leadership. Its experience in reducing energy intensity can serve as a roadmap for developing countries. And its investments in renewables at home and abroad can lead to additional technological breakthroughs that drive down costs for consumers everywhere.

But China will also face challenges as it moves from fossil fuels to renewables within a changing global resource sector. Its economy is still highly dependent on coal, implying sizeable costs as it shifts capacity to other resources such as natural gas and renewables.

Moreover, the construction of solar panels and wind farms in China has outpaced upgrades to its electrical grid, creating a great deal of waste. And Chinese producers, like most others, are feeling increasing pressure to reduce costs and improve efficiency to make up for slower demand growth worldwide. Despite these hurdles, technological innovation should help Chinese producers realize productivity gains and deliver savings to consumers. According to MGI, by 2035, changes in the supply and demand for major commodities could result in total cost savings of $900 billion to $1.6 trillion worldwide.

The scale of these savings will depend not only on how quickly new technology is adopted, but also on how policymakers and companies adapt to their new environment. But, above all, it will depend on China.

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Written By

Jiang Kejun , Senior researcher, Energy Research Institute of China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

Jonathan Woetzel, Director, McKinsey Global Institute

Search engine advertising is an effective way to boost website traffic and generate leads – and, when done correctly, many have found it is the most effective way. Knowing the market well is the key to start a successful search engine advertising campaign. This is as true in the U.S. as it is in China. However, the tools used to execute search engine campaigns are different.

In China, Baidu search engine has Baidu Phoenix Nest Promotion, a paid advertising platform similar to Google Adwords. It includes search networks, display networks, and mobile DSP networks.

We will particularly talk about text search advertising today and discuss how to use some of the Phoenix Nest functions to optimize your search engine advertising for the China market.

As with Adwords, marketers using Baidu need to understand their target audience and industry, then build the account with clear account structure, well-organized keyword groups, and relevant ad creatives and landing pages. More so than AdWords, to pursue better Baidu search engine ad performance, marketers need to have deep insights and wide knowledge of the China market and integrate that information with a strong understanding of the target audience and platform. Let’s consider four ways Baidu Phoenix Nest allows for greater insights, strong targeting, and optimization solutions.

Location Targeting

There are three types of location targeting available in Baidu Phoenix Nest. They can be used within a particular account or specific campaign.

Providences/Cities Targeting

China has been developing very fast in the past 30 years, and many cities have experienced unexpected economic growth. As the map shows, there are 33 providences in China and more than 600 cities. An understanding of these geographic categories and specific traits is essential to search engine advertising. B2B digital marketers need to leverage that knowledge to set accurate location targeting in their Baidu search engine campaigns.

A typical classification is the “tier system,” which has categorized the cities into 5 tiers. Different city tiers imply different consumer behaviors, income levels, and business opportunities. Tier 1 represents the most developed areas with the most affluent and sophisticated consumers. Tier 2 and 3 cities become increasingly attractive to the investors because the economy is growing there, while Tier 4 and 5 are less-developed small cities.

Another classification is coastal regions and inland/westwards. Typically, the cities/providences in the coastal regions are developed areas and inland cities are less developed.

Both classifications help marketers know where their target customers are and how to reach them. Compared to the Adwords location targeting, Baidu search engine advertising requires more thorough and strategic thinking when creating an account or adjusting campaign settings.

For example, most of the industrial or manufacturing companies are located in the coastal regions, and advanced technologies companies are located in tier 1 and 2 cities. With a deep understanding of the China market and where the majority of potential customers are located, marketers can better control their budget.

Region Radius Positioning

The second type of location targeting is Region Radius Positioning. It allows marketers to select a particular location on a map and establishes a radius of 5 to 50 kilometers. It is an excellent tool for companies interested in local search. Also, if marketers know potential prospects, they can even put in the prospect’s business address as the targeted location and deliver relevant campaigns to them.

Both of these location targeting methods allow marketers to set the bid adjustment with a ratio of 1 to 10 in order to increase the bids for a particular location. Meanwhile, while the campaigns are running, marketers can track the data and generate a geographic report, and then optimize accordingly.

Local Store Targeting

The third type of location targeting is more focused on local stores, like retail and restaurants, which is not very relevant to B2B marketing.

Scheduling

Most B2B marketers are very familiar with Adwords Scheduling. Baidu Phoenix Nest has a similar function that allows users to set targeted dates and times to run campaigns. For U.S. campaigns running in Adwords, three time zones need to be considered in campaign settings. Normally, B2B marketers start by scheduling a campaign from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Time and then optimize based on results. However, there are different considerations in China and Baidu PPC scheduling. Although China is a country with vast territory, people across the country only use one time – Beijing Time.

Normally, people go to work from 8 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m. For campaigns with a limited budget, marketers can set the campaign to run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., or 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. without consideration of time zone.

In many cases, B2B marketers set campaigns to run on weekdays. However, some Chinese companies also work on the weekends, and, in many cases, there are leads coming in on the weekends with a lower CPL and visits with a longer page visit time and lower bounce rate. All of these metrics indicate a targeted audience is visiting the site. To capture these customers, we often suggest continuing branded campaigns seven days a week and running the other campaigns with a smaller budget.

Because Baidu does not have a function to set bid adjustments in the scheduling interface (Adwords does), a manual operation is needed to change the budget for the weekend. Normally, marketers could lower the budget on Friday afternoon, and increase it back to normal on Monday morning.

People Targeting

In September 2016, Baidu released a new setting function called people targeting. It helps identify search engine users’ interests and search behavior and then generates more clicks and qualified conversions by presenting the most relevant ads to those target people.

It covers 21 interests, including business service, travel, manufacturing/device, e-commerce, finance, etc. If a company’s targeted audience includes any of the above interests, marketers can set a targeted interest to engage them. In addition, marketers can target people who have been exposed to your competitors’ ads in advance through this setting. Marketers can customize the bids for both types of people targeting using a ratio of 1-10.

Leads Type

In China, people prefer direct and effective communication. While form submissions are common practice for lead generation in the U.S., leads as calls and QQ instant chat are more effective to the Chinese people. B2B marketers can include a phone number and QQ number in the ad creative or on landing pages to signal to potential customers that they can contact your business directly. Other options include using a call-extension to simplify the dial process for mobile users or inserting QQ tools onto the business site.

The data can be more accurate by using call-tracking third-party tools. But even if marketers don’t have that type of technical support, they can design an easy-read report to record each phone call and QQ. Then, you can ask the sales team to follow up.

Douban is one of the lesser known social medial platforms in China, that we first wrote about back in 2012. It’s been around since 2005 and still enjoys widespread popularity amongst white collar workers. It has about 60 million registered and about 150 million unregistered users. In fact, one of the unique features of the network is the fact that users, who are not registered, can still enjoy 90% of the site’s functionality.

Marketing on Douban offers some unique opportunities for brands targeting niche audiences and could present an interesting opportunity for certain companies. Of course, compared to Weibo, WeChat, Renren or Qzone, those are fairly small numbers but what sets Douban apart is the unique culture created by a core of dedicated users. Unlike Weibo, it appeals to white collar, sophisticated Chinese urbanites. According to Doctor Yang Bo, the founder of Douban, most of the users live in major big cities of China. They are office workers, artists, freelancers and students who share common interests in arts, culture and lifestyle.

Douban is a truly unique Chinese social media phenomenon which can be loosely described as a sophisticated hybrid of Amazon’s book reviews, IMDB.com, Blogger, MySpace, Pandora and Pinterest wrapped up into one platform.

The main core of the site is its communities grouped into:

• Books section, where people review and discuss books and can buy them directly from Chinese version of Amazon. This is one of the revenue sources for Douban;
• Movies section. This one is similar to imdb.com (which is periodically blocked in China) and is the main forum for movie reviews and latest gossip. Here users can book tickets and even book seats in cinemas nearby;
• Music section is, perhaps, the most popular one and it provides a platform for young musicians to post and promote their works. It is somewhat similar to what MySpace is all about these days;

Another part of the site features Groups which are, in turn, categorized by interests such as fashion, entertainment, photography, technology or lifestyle.

The City section features various events nearby, such as festivals, exhibitions, film screenings, theater performances etc. There is a section for people willing to get together for games, group shopping, dating or any other other local activity.

Douban.FM is a music streaming service. In its structure and functionality it is similar to Pandora. It streams music that matches listener’s taste based on his/her history of favoring  or skipping tracks.

In its latest attempt to generate more revenue, Douban has added a section simply called Stuff (which is still in beta). It is all about discovering and shopping for cool things but it is quite unlike a bazaar style of Taobao. Items can be reviewed by users, favored, added to wish list or a shopping card and purchased. The Stuff section is somewhat a fresher and more sophisticated version of an online shopping site targeting buyers looking for individual style and less focused on searching for the cheapest bargains.

In the past, Douban has been criticized for slow user base growth as well as for failing to properly monetize its service by restricting its ads. It is true that advertising options are somewhat limited on the community pages with very little screen real estate dedicated to ads. Also, those spots tend to be quite expensive selling between 15 to 20 RMB per CPM, an order of magnitude higher than on comparable sites.

With the addition of the new Stuff section, Douban seems to have found a potentially lucrative formula to keep its distinct and sophisticated character and yet take advantage of the desire of the urban elite, its main user base, to express their individuality through buying unique things.

Douban seems to be one of the most underrated  Chinese social media sites with great potential. Besides the obvious option of promoting products thorough its new Stuff section, marketing on Douban should be an excellent option for a more sophisticated promotion campaign targeting upscale urban consumers through its communities and groups platform.

Several high visibility brands have also established what is called a brand stations on Douban. One example is of Adidas that features its collections but also actively promoting the brand through completions and events.

Douban, being a one of a kind social media site in China, is often overlooked by Companies as an alternative venue to appeal to increasingly sophisticated big city based users and can be effectively used to target niche sectors of the Chinese online community.

When China’s largest cab-hailing app company Didi Chuxing announced at the end of July a merger with Uber after a bitter battle for dominance, it was unclear what, exactly, would become of Uber’s China operations. Essentially, Uber sold its China operations to Didi, leaving Uber free to focus on less challenging markets ahead of a widely expected IPO.

In August, Didi said that the two companies would remain independent. More recently, Didi has said that “customer facing operations” will remain independent. Over the next two weeks, Uber users will have to download the new app.

This new app is in Mandarin only, is not compatible with Uber international, uses the same map software as Didi, uses the same drivers as Didi, and does not work with foreign credit cards.

So…Uber is dead, though the company did announce an “international edition” planned for next year. Given Didi’s international aspirations, it’s unclear whether this would be “Uber” as such. As for the present, there have been reports of difficulties using the app and of price hikes, which commentators are attributing to the fact there is a monopoly, compared to in the past when there were two companies offering generous subsidies in order to undercut each other.

Inside China, Didi’s future is even more difficult to discern. While it has become the undisputed number one in the car-hailing app market (there are still much smaller competitors like Yidao Yongche), there were sweeping new laws introduced just before the merger.

The devil is most certainly in the details. The new laws specify requirements for drivers and ban the large subsidies that characterized the Uber-Didi battle, but mostly, they palm off the heavy duty rule-making to local governments to do as they see fit.

And earlier this month, a host of local governments did just that. The big problem relates to migrant workers—the people who already find it tough to live in big cities because they lack a hukou (household registration, basically citizenship of a city) for that area. The rules issues by Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen all prevent migrant workers from being drivers, presumably in an effort to ensure drivers don’t have criminal backgrounds.

Critics say it is an effort to assist cab companies, who provide a fair chunk of revenue to local governments, and say that this is effectively regulating car-hailing apps to the point where they are basically just cab companies that use apps instead of part of the sharing economy.

The Wall Street Journal cited Didi as saying that just 2.6 percent of its Shanghai drivers were local residents. This rule would effectively lock migrant workers out of one of the more stable work opportunities for the upwardly mobile. Unsurprisingly, Didi loudly voiced its objections, in a rare case of the company being openly critical of government regulation.

It is important to note however, that these are draft regulations. The final version may end up being less harsh if Didi persuades the authorities that these requirements are too onerous. On the other hand, there have been strikes by cab drivers specifically complaining of the savage competition from car-hailing apps, and effectively turning Didi into a big cab company would make things far easier from a regulatory standpoint.

One thing is certain: while the war between Didi and Uber is well and truly over in China, the struggle to regulate the winner is ongoing. And with Didi gearing up to go international, the company still has its work cut out for it.

Source: This article originally appeared in “The World of Chinese” magazine.

Chinese tourists spent $215 billion overseas last year - $10 billion that went towards overseas medical tourism alone. China is on the rise to become one of the world’s largest outbound medical tourism markets, and this trend for future Chinese demand is set to drive the global market for medical tourism up to $678.5 billion by 2017 – an impressive 54.7% growth from the $438.6 billion charted in 2015.

Chinese residents, spurred by rising income and growing awareness are increasingly demanding better quality private healthcare, a key factor underpinning Boston Consulting Group’s forecast that private health insurance spending in China will grow to RMB 1.1 trillion in 2020 from last year’s RMB 241 billion.

China’s population is ageing fast, which means more and more Chinese are discovering serious health problems that comes along with old age. Considering there will be more than 250 million urban households that are classed as middle class by 2020 this will further fuel the demand of foreign medical care.

While China’s super wealthy HNWI favour the US or Europe for medical holidays, China’s middle-class prefer more affordable treatment options in South Korea, Singapore, or Thailand.

We review 8 booming medical tourism destinations that are set to grow in the coming years:

United States

With four hospitals ranking in the top ten facilities in the world, combined with extensive travel links between China and US cities, and recent visa policy changes to quicken visa application processes, it’s no surprise why the US dominates as one of the most popular destinations for Chinese seeking medical treatment abroad.

Japan

At just a mere 2-3 hours away by plane and offering increasingly liberalised visas for Chinese visitors, Japan is a highly-accessible and popular medical tourism destination for Chinese, especially for standard health checks. Japan invests heavily in its health system, hence its health system is not only one of the world’s best equipped and most cost-effective, but also one of the most fastidious and reliable ones. This makes Japan highly attractive to Chinese patients – many who are jaded with China’s tenuous medical offerings – which explains the 310,00 Chinese medical tourists expected to visit Japan by 2020.

Germany

Boasting first-rate medical facilities Germany is ranked as the fifth-best medical system in the world by the US-based Commonwealth Foundation. Germany is also home to the second-best medical facilities in the world, as voted by Medical Tourism Index, and this largely due to the fact that the German government is the second-largest investor in healthcare among the countries in the OECD.

United Kingdom

Ranked top out of 11 of the world’s wealthiest countries in a study by the US-based Commonwealth Foundation, the UK healthcare system is a huge draw for Chinese medical tourists, particularly for those in search for liver transplants. Besides that, its quality of care, efficiency, and low cost at the point of service are also other factors attracting Chinese medical tourists to the UK – now even more so with the pound’s depreciation post-Brexit.

Singapore

Proximity, cultural and language similarities, as well as great food make Singapore a popular option for Chinese medical tourists. Singapore’s excellent facilities are made even more compelling by Singapore’s move to relax visa requirements for Chinese travellers - 9,000 Chinese medical tourists ventured to the Lion City in 2015 for treatment.

Thailand

Excellent and fast-growing range of medical facilities have rendered Thailand as one of the biggest medical tourism markets in the world, attracting an astonishing 2.81 million overseas patients in 2015. A big reason can be attributed to the Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, which not only offers a range of premier and VIP suites and 24-hour hotline service, but even provides an embassy contact service, a visa application assistance service, reception service, and airport transfer service, making it a luxury medical experience. Having received approximately 7,500 Chinese customers in the past year, Bumrungrad Hospital added a ward staffed by Chinese speakers, adding to a customer base that has been growing at approximately 25% per year.

South Korea

A favourite for Chinese medical tourists seeking cosmetic surgery, South Korea’s medical tourism drive, including specialised medical visas for foreign patients, saw 56,000 Chinese medical tourists visits in 2014. Last year, that number surged to 179,000 Chinese patients, who spent $1 billion on hospital fees, accommodation, and travel in South Korea, making Chinese the largest group of foreign patients in South Korea.

India

Low cost, increasingly accessibility, and with an expanding range of private hospital chains like Fortis, Appollo, and Max, India is currently ranked as the top country in the world by Medical Tourism Index This is especially so for those seeking treatment for diseases, such as Hepatitis C and malaria.

Sources: Caixin, Boston Consulting Group.