interview

A new book by London-based academic Dr Keyu Jin argues that the popular perception that China still relies on technology transfers, industrial subsidies and unfair trade competition for its economic success is outdated and exaggerated and that a changed perception could revolutionise how companies do business there. Paul French finds out more For decades, it’s been an easy and throw-away shorthand to talk of either socialism or capitalism with “Chinese …

Understanding China’s urbanisation drive and its new mega-cities – the powerhouses of consumption, business and societal change – is a challenge for all businesses. A new book explores the topic. Providing some great perspectives on the process of urbanisation in China is China Urbanising: Impacts and Transitions (University of Pennsylvania Press), edited by Weiping Wu and Qin Gao, both professors at Columbia University. The book gathers an interdisciplinary group of …

Lin Zhang’s new book Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy (2023, Columbia University Press) traces the myriad local entrepreneurs, often in obscure and remote rural locations, using technology to reinvent their businesses and themselves. Paul French finds out more Whether you are a villager using e-commerce to find new and more profitable markets or a middle-class urban woman reselling luxury goods, the entrepreneurship journey is never …

Zhongguancun is the birthplace of some of China’s (and the world’s) biggest tech companies, including Lenovo, Bytedance – the company behind Tiktok – and Didi. But what role does ‘China’s Silicon Valley’ have to play in the future of the country’s tech sector? Anyone involved in tech in China has probably visited Zhongguancun,  the major technology hub in Beijing’s Haidian District that’s been dubbed ‘China’s Silicon Valley’. The area’s scientific …

The Amur River, also known as the Heilong River, forms the border between Russia and China and has been a point of contention and exchange for hundreds – if not thousands – of years. A new book by Colin Thubron offers a unique traveller’s perspective on the present and future of a region where two of the world’s superpowers face each other Colin Thubron has long been one of Britain’s …

Britain’s trade with China during the Qing dynasty and the UK’s current obsession with Huawei may have more in common than you think. Sinologist Linda Jaivin’s ‘The Shortest History of China’ attempts to condense the country’s ‘unruly complexity’ into a genuinely useful book for anyone trying to understand the country better. Paul French finds out more. The books in the “Shortest Histories” series are not actually that short – 250 pages …

The success of many British companies operating in China today is, in large part, a product of the post-Mao reform movement and the plan for economic growth that avoided either the ‘shock therapy’ economics of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe or wholesale neoliberalism, says political economist Isabella Weber. Paul French finds out more The arguments over reform in China throughout the 1980s and since have been much commented upon …