The Chinese Watch Brand That Beat the Swiss

In 2016 Zhang Jianmin was on a visit to Milan when he decided to buy an expensive suit. The purchase was something of a flight of fancy: Mr. Zhang, founder and president of CIGA Design, a wristwatch manufacturer based in Shenzhen, China, imagined wearing it to the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. The annual awards event, commonly called G.P.H.G. or the Grand Prix, is often described as “the Oscars of watchmaking.” “I told myself, I will only wear this suit on the G.P.H.G. stage when I win the award,” Mr.…

ASEAN Supports Supply Chains Amid Trade Diversions

ASEAN Supports Supply Chains Amid Trade Diversions | South China Morning Post At the China Conference: United States 2021, Dr. Mary E. Lovely, Senior Fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Sourabh Gupta, Head of the Trade & Tech Program at the Institute for China-America Studies spoke about the growing importance of ASEAN and the current state of shifting supply chains the Southeast Asian region. This conversation was hosted by Owen Churchill, U.S.-Based Reporter at the South China Morning Post. READ FULL ARTICLE South China Morning Post

Global SinoPhoto awards – Chinese culture in pictures

An image titled The Dancing Dreams of a Mountain Girl, depicting a young mountain girl dancing for her grandmother in a village in China, is the overall winner of an international photo competition celebrating Chinese culture. The Global SinoPhoto awards invited photographers to tell Chinese stories, imagining, interpreting and inspiring connections between Chinese culture and the rest of the world. The awards covered four categories: water (as 2022 is the year of the water tiger), home, work and play, and environment. The Museum of East Asian Art (MEAA) in Bath…

How the Computer Chip Shortage Could Incite a U.S. Conflict With China

But Taiwan and its semiconductors are far more important to America’s economy than Ukraine is — meaning it would very likely be far more difficult for the United States to stay out of a conflict involving Taiwan. Taiwan accounts for half of the overall production of microchips that are critical to the functioning of mobile phones, consumer electronics, cars, military equipment and more. South Korea, the nearest competitor, has about 17 percent of the overall market. But Taiwanese chips are the smallest and fastest, and its foundries account for 92…

Democrats Renew Push for Industrial Policy Bill Aimed at China

WASHINGTON — Biden administration officials and Democrats in Congress are pushing to revive stalled legislation that would pour billions of dollars into scientific research and development and shore up domestic manufacturing, amid deep differences on Capitol Hill about the best way to counter China and confront persistent supply chain woes. House Democrats unveiled a 2,900-page bill on Tuesday evening that would authorize $45 billion in grants and loans to support supply chain resilience and American manufacturing, along with providing billions of dollars in new funding for scientific research. Speaker Nancy…

Vestas, a Danish Wind Giant, Warns of Supply Chain Turbulence

Wind energy projects are being proposed around the world to help meet climate goals, but the largest maker of turbines is finding that supply chain issues and pandemic lockdowns are hampering wind farm construction and hurting financial results. “It is troubling and challenging out there,” Henrik Andersen, chief executive of the Danish company Vestas Wind Systems, said on a call with analysts on Wednesday. Mr. Andersen said the company had to recently navigate the disruption caused by the compulsory mass testing of 14 million residents in Tianjin, China, where Vestas…

British judges have no place in Hong Kong

The Orwellian reports coming from Hong Kong will come as no surprise to those of us who have been watching its legal system deteriorate (New Hong Kong barristers’ chief warns profession to stay out of politics, 21 January). Since the draconian national security law was imposed in 2020, Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong has been increasingly flagrant. As shocking as the attack on the rule of law in Hong Kong is, we should also be asking why British judges are still propping up a broken system. British judges have sat…

Where Is Peng Shuai? Tennis Players and Fans Still Want to Know

But Chinese television did not broadcast the women’s tournaments in 2022 that were played ahead of the Open despite owning the rights. It is unclear whether this constitutes a boycott. In 2019, CCTV stopped airing N.B.A. games after Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets at the time, expressed support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. No events for the WTA or ATP, the professional men’s tennis tour, have been held in China since early 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which had shut down international sports events…

Xi Jinping warns China’s low-carbon ambitions must not interfere with ‘normal life’

China’s ambitious low-carbon goals should not come at the expense of energy and food security or the “normal life” of ordinary people, president Xi Jinping said, signalling a more cautious approach to climate change as the economy slows. China, the world’s biggest source of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, has been under pressure to “enhance ambition” and take more drastic action to tackle global warming. But amid mounting economic challenges, China is worried about the risk to jobs and growth, especially as it prepares to hold a key Communist party conclave…

China is determined to make the Winter Olympics go smoothly

Jan 26th 2022 CHINESE OFFICIALS like to call Beijing the “double-Olympic city”. No other can boast having staged both the summer games and its winter equivalent, the 24th iteration of which will open in the Chinese capital on February 4th. The winter games will arouse less enthusiasm, in China or globally, than the summer ones in Beijing in 2008. But for Xi Jinping, China’s leader, they are of great symbolic importance. They are also fraught with risk. Overshadowed by diplomatic boycotts, a potential war in Europe involving China’s close friend,…