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Journalist China
Business news from China By Doug Young.
Doug Young, journalist, has lived and worked in China for 20 years, much of that as a journalist, writing about publicly listed Chinese companies.
He is based in Shanghai where, in addition to his role as editor of Young’s China Business Blog, he teaches financial journalism at Fudan University, one of China’s top journalism programs.
He contributes regularly to a wide range of publications in both China and the west, including Forbes, CNN, Seeking Alpha and Reuters, as well as Asia-based publications including the South China Morning Post, Global Times, Shanghai Daily and Shanghai Observer
China uses domestic market as weapon in western trade wars
After years of relying on exports, China’s new focus on stronger domestic consumption to fuel economic growth is not only helping to diversify its economy but is also becoming a valuable new tool in its trade disputes with the West. Its major trading partners, most notably the US and Europe, may need to pay closer attention to China’s fast-growing domestic market when lodging new trade grievances in the future, or risk seeing their own exporters cut off from millions of increasingly wealthy Chinese consumers. Read Full Post…
Sina’s (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo microblogging platform is moving in many different directions these days, this time adding a major video component through a new tie-up with online video leader Youku Tudou (NYSE: YOKU). This new tie-up looks smart in some ways, as it pairs 2 leaders in online entertainment spaces that look complementary. But at the same time, Sina needs to be careful in its zealous campaign to commercialize Weibo, or risk alienating its millions of users and eventually driving them away to a growing array of rival products entering the market. Read Full Post…
Poultry plant tragedy casts spotlight on Shuanghui’s Smithfield buy
A major poultry plant disaster in northeaster Jilin province is casting an awkward spotlight on pork processor Shuanghui as it tries to convince wary US consumers and politicians of the benefits of its pending $7 billion purchase of US rival Smithfield Foods (NYSE: SFD). Not surprisingly, a US trade union representing many Smithfield workers has used the Chinese tragedy to issue a carefully worded statement implying that similar disasters could happen in the US if the Shuanghui-Smithfield merger proceeds. While this looks partly like politics, I personally believe the concerns aren’t completely groundless since China’s food industry doesn’t exactly have a strong track record for good business practices. Read Full Post…
Two recent encounters with high-level westerners from very different backgrounds has made me realize just how much China has changed as a career choice for foreigners in the last two decades. At the same time, it’s also made me realize that the older generation of “China hands” represented by one of those westerners who came to Asia in the 1980s and ‘90s are a dying species, perhaps destined for extinction in the not-too-distant future.
Some may say this transformation of China to a routine work location for foreign executives from its former status as an exotic and often difficult destination is a good thing, reflecting a rapid economic advance that has vastly improved the lives of the country’s 1.3 billion people. I mostly agree with this view, since the China of today is certainly a better place to live in most ways than the one of just a decade or two earlier. But the looming relegation of these China hands to the history books also seems like a reason for reflection and just a touch of melancholy, since many of these people were instrumental in helping China to transform to its current state of prosperity. Read Full Post…
After disappearing from the headlines for a few months, venture-funded smartphone maker Xiaomi is popping back into the news with mixed signals about its plans for a new low-end model. I’ve often said that Xiaomi’s marketing-savvy co-founder Lei Jun sees his company as China’s version of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), since many of the company’s product development and sales tactics look similar to the US tech giant’s. This latest plan for a new low-cost smartphone called Hongmi, or “Red Rice”, seems to follow that pattern, since buzz has been building for a while that Apple may also be preparing to launch a more affordable version of its premium iPhone. Read Full Post…
Funding may be drying up for Internet companies in mainstream sectors like e-commerce, but 2 new deals for online firms in the education and information space show there’s still money out there chasing some of these less developed niche areas. More broadly speaking, these 2 newest deals are also relatively small, reflecting the fact that we’re unlikely to see many blockbuster new financing rounds of $100 million or more anytime soon in China’s overheated tech space. That said, some of these newer deals in emerging spaces could represent important interesting investment opportunities that could ultimately be purchased by bigger rivals or make offshore IPOs. Read Full Post…
After disappearing from the headlines for a few months, the ongoing search war between industry leader Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and challenger Qihoo 360 (NYSE: QIHU) has jumped back into the news with reports that the former has sued the latter. This new lawsuit is most likely just the first phase in a new stage of the battle between these 2 companies, and I fully expect Qihoo to file a countersuit within the next few weeks. I could even be a bit sarcastic and express my surprise that Qihoo didn’t file the first suit in this rivalry, since the software security specialist is notoriously litigious and has probably sued just about every major Chinese Internet company at some point. Read Full Post…
When is a modestly successful IPO cause for big celebration? The answer is: When your name is LightInTheBox, and you’ve just completed the first IPO in New York by a Chinese company in a half a year. Not only is LightInTheBox the first major New York IPO by a Chinese firm this year, but it’s also only the third such offering since the beginning of 2012, reflecting the chilly investor climate that has stifled such listings on Wall Street for more than 2 years. Read Full Post…
Many of the usual global CEOs are in China this week for the annual Fortune Global Forum in the interior city of Chengdu, but what’s really interesting this year is the presence of many big Hollywood executives. I use the word “interesting” instead of “surprising”, because the presence of top executives from names like DreamWorks Animation (Nasdaq: DWA) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) isn’t really that unexpected considering the sudden love affair between China and Hollywood that’s developed rather rapidly over the last year and a half. Even the music industry is finally starting to believe in the huge potential of the China market, with the head of the US-based Recording Academy, organizer of the Grammy Awards, also attending the event in Chengdu. Read Full Post…
An interesting new Chinese media report is questioning whether US fast food giant Yum (NYSE: YUM) is spoiling the Little Sheep chain of hot pot restaurants it acquired just a year ago. The numbers released by Yum certainly don’t look very so-so, and comments by an unnamed restaurant official don’t paint a very rosy picture either for Little Sheep under Yum’s management. But it’s probably still too early to say whether this acquisition will be a success, and I would still be willing to bet we’ll see Little Sheep start making some new and exciting moves later this year. Read Full Post…
China is quickly learning how to play the game of tit-for-tat trade wars, with news that Beijing has launched a new anti-dumping probe against wines imported from the European Union. Anyone who has followed recent China-EU trade relations will know, of course, that announcement of this new probe by the Commerce Ministry comes the same day that the EU formally announced anti-dumping tariffs against imported Chinese solar panels. Read Full Post…
