interview

In the 1980s and 1990s, London art dealer James Birch built quite a reputation selling works by British surrealists and emerging young British artists (YBAs) from his Chelsea gallery. Then the globally renowned Francis Bacon agreed to let him arrange an exhibition for him in Moscow in 1988. His memoir of that adventure, Bacon in Moscow (Cheerio Publishing, 2022), is both funny and frustrating by turn, and many who did …

Moving goods around has been one of the great challenges for domestic and foreign business in China since the beginning of the country’s reform and opening up in 1979. Getting your product inland, down to consumers in lower tiers, into the countryside, to the far west or the south has been a process that had to begin virtually from scratch. Refrigerated trucks, air and rail freight, and just-in-time delivery are …

These days, male Idols are a standard part of the advertising toolkit across Asia and in China – in fashion magazines, shopping channels, adverts, and online sales channels. It may be a rarely seen phenomenon in the West, but rest assured that it is huge in China. Put simply, male idols are able to sell more magazines and more product than female idols – largely because of their enormous and …

It’s safe to say that many are amazed (and rather jealous) of the apparent success of China’s e-commerce market and the internet businesses that thrive within it. But how did they do it? New book From Click to Boom (Princeton University Press, 2024) asks that very question – how did the world’s largest e-commerce market highlight a digital path to development? Paul French caught up with its author, Lizhi Liu, …

While visiting China last month, CBBC’s CEO Peter Burnett sat down with Sijie Yuan from 21st Century Business Herald to discuss his experience of witnessing China’s economic development achievements since the reform and opening up In an interview with China’s 21st Century Business Herald (read the full interview in Chinese here), CBBC CEO Peter Burnett said that when he first came to work in Hong Kong, the UK’s GDP was …

Originally from Oxford, Alec Ash is a writer and editor focused on China, where he lived from 2008-2022. His first book, Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China, was published in 2017. Feeling burnt out, he decided to move to the more peaceful province of Dali in Yunnan to experience life there. And it was where he found himself living through the Covid-19 pandemic, too. Ash now lives in New …

To mark the 70th anniversary of the China-Britain Business Council, FOCUS speaks to companies that have experienced outstanding success in the Chinese market over the last seven decades In this instalment, FOCUS talks to Mark Su, President of Greater China for Johnson Matthey, a leading British multinational company in the field of sustainable technologies What has been Johnson Matthey’s history in China? Johnson Matthey (JM) has been active in China since …

Former diplomat and prolific author Kerry Brown, currently Professor of Chinese Studies at Kings College London’s Lau Institute, has just published The Great Reversal (Yale University Press). The book takes as its starting point that while modern China has a narrative of its relationship with Britain, Britons don’t have a similar understanding of our relationship with China. If they are taught any history at all, children at schools in the United Kingdom today are more likely …

On a freezing January afternoon in 1992, Deng Xiaoping, China’s former paramount leader and now a revered elder statesman, set off on a month-long trip around China’s south in defence of the reforms he had set in motion to open up China’s economy and transform the country into the political and economic powerhouse we know today. In The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China’s Future (Bloomsbury Asian …

Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade (Harvard University Press), the new book by Assistant Professor of International History at LSE Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, may focus on the US experience of trading with China, but there is much for the UK to learn too. How did the US, EU and Britain – along with many other countries – help make China the world’s foremost trading power? …