News | Mark Schlarbaum - Mainland China Business Collaboration

Meet China’s dinosaur king

By Katie Hunt, Kristie Lu Stout, Jason Kwok, Yuli Yang and Shen Lu, CNN

Beijing (CNN)Paleontologist Xu Xing has discovered so many dinosaurs he’s lost count.

A spreadsheet he brings up on the desktop computer in his fossil-filled office in Beijing stops at 57, but Xu says he thinks it’s more than 60.

Whatever the exact number, Xu has named more dinosaurs than any other living paleontologist, unearthing fossils in some of China’s remotest corners that have revolutionized our understanding of prehistory.

They include the 8-meter long gigantoraptor, which stood twice as high as any man and the one-fingered linhenykus that could have danced on your hand.

Dinosaurs: Feathered friends?

But it’s not just the sheer number of dinosaurs.

Xu and his Chinese colleagues have found evidence that dinosaurs were not the scaly, reptilian killers depicted in movies but feathered, furry and a lot more bird-like.

In fact, it’s now widely accepted that the birds that flap around our backyards are descended from dinosaurs. But this was just a controversial theory until 1996, when the first feathered fossil was unearthed in Liaoning Province, northern China — the sinosauropteryx.

“When that fossil made its way to the West, actually photographs of it, it was scintillating… it blew people away,” says Richard Stone, international news editor at Science magazine.

Since then, some 35 feathered dinosaurs have been discovered, mainly in China.

Although the fossil evidence has yet to be found, Xu believes the vast majority of dinosaurs would have had feathers or bristles — including the fearsome tyrannosaurus rex and hulking, pea-brained sauropods.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

MARK SCHLARBAUM - Experienced in China - US business partnerships. Never giving up for those that never stop fighting! Help me join the fight against blood cancer and reach my fundraising goal! Visit My Fund Raising Page

American football is gaining traction in China

Should the Detroit Lions play a game in China?

By Kyle Meinke

Would it be a good idea for the Detroit Lions to play a game in China?

Fans seem split over the notion.

And so are the Lions themselves.

Team president Rod Wood said he loves the idea, as long as Detroit wouldn’t have to give up a home game.

“I kind of nudged Bob (Quinn) when that was announced and told him I might be interested in taking the team to China,” Wood said this week during the NFL owners meetings in Boca Raton, Fla.

But Quinn?

“He’s not in favor of it,” Wood said. “So I don’t think we’re going to do it, unless the schedulers deal us a two or something in poker.”

The Lions have played international contests each of the past two years, knocking off Atlanta in dramatic fashion in 2014 before losing big against Kansas City last season. Both games were played at Wembley Stadium in London, where the league has worked to expand its global appeal with the International Series.

Detroit is one of seven teams that has played multiple games abroad.

Now the NFL is expanding the program, with countries such as Germany, China, Mexico and Brazil all being considered for potential games.

“I think teams are interested in, one, participating in how we’d expand our game on a global basis — but in particular, in China,” commissioner Roger Goodell said. “So we will have to go through that process over the next several months and again continue to get to the point where we believe, if we do this, we can be successful. At this point, we do.”

Reports surfaced this week that the Los Angeles Rams are expected to be involved in the first China game in 2018. Who they’ll face remains a mystery.

If Wood had his way, the Lions would be considered.

“China’s the biggest country in the world,” he said. “Obviously, other professional sports teams have tried to get into the Far East a little bit more. China has a huge following for the NBA, so if we could get over there, it would probably benefit the league from a financial standpoint.”

From a marketing standpoint, the play would make sense. Detroit already has an expanding fan base in Europe, due in part to playing a coupe games there — and winning the 2014 affair on a last-second kick — and could tap into the unexplored Asian market.

But from a football perspective, the game would be a challenge. The 12-hour time difference with Beijing would be particularly problematic. Players already lament the four-hour difference when heading from the Eastern time zone to London, and teams hire sleep specialists to fight jet lag.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

6 important lessons to learn if you want to make money in China

Will Heilpern

China’s economy is the second largest in the world. The country presents a massive opportunity for western brands to make money. However, many of them still seem out of touch with the country.

That’s why Landor — a global brand consultancy — released six tips on how western brands can perform well in China.

It was compiled by brand consultants based in the UK and across China, using wide ranging studies from organizations including Credit Suisse, The Economist, and Brandlab.

Here are the six themes Landor thought were most important for western companies looking to be successful in China.

1. Mind the (generation) gap.
Landor described the generation gap between those born in China before 1976 (when former communist party leader Mao Zedong died) and those who were born after as a “generation chasm.” Values, fears, tastes, and interests vary greatly between the two groups.

A 2015 study by Iconoculture revealed that the most important values for those born pre-1980 were “thrift,” “practicality,” “belief,” “wisdom,” and “reality.” In stark contrast, the generation born after 1980 valued “convenience,” “relaxation,” “beauty,” “image,” and “friendship.”

2. Be everything to everyone.
Western millennials like big brands that do one thing really well, such as Coca Cola, WhatsApp, Oakley, and Samsung.

However, a Brandlab study used by Landor showed that Chinese millennials think differently.

They want one brand that does everything. They care more about the number of different products the one brand can produce than the quality.

A Chinese millennial from the study, called Pair, said: “It should be all of life, so you can choose any part of the brand for your life.” Another participant, Chritina, said: “People choose one company, one brand …”

3. Seduce the farmer.
China has the biggest middle class in the entire world. 109 million Chinese people are defined in this way in Credit Suisse’s 2015 wealth report. Landor suggested that rather than focusing on the super rich, who are already targeted heavily, more potential lies in marketing products to the middle classes.

Chinese companies like Alibaba and Tencent advertise from the bottom demographic up, unlike Western companies that tend to advertise from the top down.

For example, Chinese Internet giant Tencent, which owns popular messaging app WeChat, advertises on floor mats. While multi-billion dollar e-commerce company Alibaba sends teams to remote villages to show farmers how to access its products.

4. Join the Sisterhood.
Landor suspects that many Western brands have an incorrect perception of Chinese women as “sweet and innocent.” In China, 91% of urban adult women contribute to household income and 62% describe themselves as joint breadwinners, according to The Economist.

Celebrities with billions of followers, like Yang Lan (pictured,) Chen Lu Yu, and Yao Chen epitomize the strength of women in China. Also interesting is that Chinese women are more active on social networks (74%) than those in the US (46%), according to a report by Iconoculture.

5. Recognize the rise of self expression.
Brands in China are lightening up. A relatively new phenomenon in Chinese advertising is the “Brain Boom.” The concept is that all advertising needs to be eye-opening, whether positive or negative.

Last year, the Chinese governement announced that it had become fed up with advertisers describing every product as “the best.” In an attempt to end the practice, it set in place a fine of up to 1 million yuan ($153,542) on advertisers who used superlatives.

The updated law made it illegal for adverts to say that any product is “the best,” “the highest” (meaning “supreme”,) or “national level” (meaning “top level”). The full list of terms was not specified, however. Other superlatives could be deemed law-breaking by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce.

Many advertisers in China were not happy about the blanket ban and many decided to openly mock the new law. Didi Kuadi — China’s version of Uber — ran a campaign saying it was “So fast it violates the advertising law,” while Proya cosmetics ran a poster which said: “Sorry! Now we can only be the second-best.”

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

China has more billionaires than US

China now has the most billionaires despite the country’s economic slowdown, stock market plunge and crackdown on corruption, according to a China-based wealth research firm.

The Hurun Report said China now has 568 billionaires versus the United States’ 535, giving it the largest population of billionaires in the world.

According to Hurun, China’s billionaire population first surpassed the U.S. in August, and grew by a total of 90 last year.

Granted Hurun’s numbers are subject to some debate, as they differ from those of Forbes and other wealth research firms, which still put the U.S. far ahead of China when it comes to billionaires. According to Forbes’ 2015 China report, China has 335 billionaires compared with 536 in the U.S.

Worldwide, Hurun said there are now 2,188 billionaires, up 99 from 2014 and marking a new record. Yet it said billionaire growth globally is slowing along with the economy. The total wealth of the world’s billionaires grew 9 percent in 2015 to $7.3 trillion — more than the combined GDPs of Germany and the U.K.

For the first time, Beijing has also passed New York as the billionaire capital of the world, 100 to 95, Hurun said.

“Despite its own slowdown and falling stockmarkets, China minted more new billionaires than any other country in the world last year, mainly on the back of new listings,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report.

Hoogewerf couldn’t be reached for comment on why Hurun’s numbers differ from Forbes’. And determining people’s personal wealth is hardly an exact science — especially in an economy as opaque as China’s.

Yet he has previously told CNBC that if anything, Hurun’s China count is low.

“For every billionaire that Hurun Report has found, I estimate we have missed at least two,” he said last year.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

Hungry China sees more riches than war in Afghan future

China’s Silk Road revival steams ahead as cargo train arrives in Iran

Goods travel 6,462 miles in 14 days as part of efforts to resurrect ancient trade route connecting east with Europe

A long-distance cargo train has travelled from China to Iran as part of an attempted revival of the ancient Silk Road, a trans-Asian trade route connecting the east to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.

The 32-container train, which arrived in Tehran on Monday, took 14 days to complete the 6,462 mile (10,399km) journey from China’s eastern Zhejiang province through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – one month less than the sea route from Shanghai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Iranian officials have indicated that the ultimate aim is to extend the rail route to Europe, positioning Iran on a key stretch to the continent. The train, which departed from Zhejiang’s trading hub Yiwu, travelled an average of more than 700km a day.

“Countries along the Silk Road are striving to revive the ancient network of trade routes,” said Mohsen Pour Seyed Aghaei, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways company, according to Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency. “The arrival in Tehran of the train in less than a fortnight has been an unprecedented achievement.”

He said the train had outstripped “truck and road transport” and demonstrated the great advantage of the route.

China is Iran’s biggest trading partner. Commercial ties continued despite decade-long international sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme, which were lifted in January after last year’s landmark nuclear deal.

Last month, Chinese president Xi Jinping became the first global leader to visit Tehran since the sanctions were lifted. The two nations signed an agreement on boosting trade to $600bn (£420bn) over the next decade.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

The biggest overseas purchase in Chinese history

The biggest overseas purchase in Chinese history is meant to ensure the world’s largest country can keep feeding its people.

by Keith Johnson

ina’s biggest-ever overseas acquisition, announced this month, isn’t about gobbling up resources to feed its industrial maw, broadening its financial leverage, or enhancing its strategic position. Rather, the $43 billion bid for Swiss agricultural company Syngenta is about something a lot more basic and a lot more important: ensuring that its farms will be able to produce enough food to keep pace with the country’s still-growing population, already the world’s largest.

Beijing today faces a variation of the dilemma that has bedeviled leaders there for thousands of years: how to feed so many people with so little arable land. China today accounts for about 19 percent of the global population, yet has just 8 percent of its arable land. And unlike other countries with growing populations, there’s no land left to till; indeed, given years of chemical abuse in the countryside and industrial pollution that sowed heavy metals through rice paddies, China’s available farmland is actually shrinking.

With the population set to keep growing from 1.3 billion today to 1.4 billion or more by 2030, and with demand for cereal grains rising as the population eats ever more beef and pork, the country needs a quantum leap in agricultural productivity if it is going to feed its population in a generation’s time. Food shortages, or spiking prices for food, have been a recipe for unrest, rebellion, and imperial downfall in China for hundreds of years. Food security, the ability to ensure ample and affordable supplies of food for all, is a political headache for leaders in Beijing who are all too aware that staying in power means keeping rice bowls filled. The Syngenta deal — which is meant to keep Chinese farms humming — could be part of the solution.

“Food security has become more prominent under President Xi Jinping. He personally has put a lot of political capital into emphasizing food security,” said Fred Gale, the senior economist for China at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

It’s not just Xi. Premier Li Keqiang zeroed in on the under-performing agricultural sector in his wide-ranging critique last year of China’s economy, following former Premier Wen Jiabao’s lifelong focus on food security. For the 13th straight year, China’s guiding annual policy blueprint, the so-called “No. 1 Central Document,” put agricultural innovation at the top of the nation’s wish list. And food security was at the top of the agenda at last year’s summit between Xi and U.S. President Barack Obama.

That’s where the proposed $43 billion purchase of Swiss-based Syngenta by state-owned China National Chemical Corp., or ChemChina, comes in. Syngenta is one of the world’s biggest producers of crop protection products, from pesticides to fungicides to novel types of seeds that can increase harvests of corn, rice, and wheat. It rebuffed a richer offer last summer from rival agribusiness giant Monsanto Co., but welcomed ChemChina’s bid with open arms; Syngenta’s board of directors said in a release that it was “unanimously recommending the offer” to shareholders.

The deal, Syngenta Chairman Michel Demaré said in a statement on Feb. 3, “is focused on growth globally, specifically in China and other emerging markets, and enables long-term investment in innovation.”

It could also be just what the doctor ordered for Chinese leaders. “The Syngenta acquisition is very consistent with their goal of overhauling the agricultural sector; one of the themes of that overhaul is to rely on new technology to boost productivity,” Gale said.

Indeed, ChemChina Chairman Ren Jianxin talked up the deal as a way to “increase global crop yields” and placed special emphasis on the Chinese market, where he said it’s necessary to increase both agricultural productivity and quality.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

China Box Office Breaks World Record With $548M in One Week

by Patrick Brzeski

China’s movie box office has smashed the world’s seven-day revenue record for a single territory, racking up an astonishing $548 million in ticket sales over the Chinese New Year’s holiday period, plus Valentine’s Day on Sunday.

That eclipses the record set in North America six weeks ago, when Star Wars: The Force Awakens lifted the territory to $529.6 million from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

The record one-week haul also is considerably more than the Chinese box office generated for the entire year just one decade ago. In 2006, China’s total box office was approximately $327.5 million.

Hong Kong hitmaker Stephen Chow’s latest comedy Mermaid helped fuel the historic total, grossing $275.1 million for the week, according to data from Beijing-based box office monitor Ent Group.

Wong Jing and Andrew Lau’s From Vegas to Macau III, starring Chow Yun Fat, came in second, pulling in $119.6 million in seven days. Fantasy blockbuster sequel The Monkey King 2, starring Aaron Kwok and Gong Li, also raced past the $100 million mark, earning $116.2 million.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

Australia enjoys new boom in China beef demand

In the restaurants of Beijing and Shanghai, patrons are asking where’s the beef.

The question is proving a boon for Aussie farmers like Sam Burton-Taylor, who is shipping ever-larger quantities of meat to satisfy the voracious appetite of China’s growing middle class.

Australian beef sales to China surged six-fold in three years to a record $917 million in 2015, data from Meat & Livestock Australia show. The volume of beef shipped to China rose more than four times over the same period while the price received for the exports has jumped 37 per cent in the past 12 months.

While earnings from meat, which totalled $15 billion last year, aren’t about to eclipse those from iron ore, the export boom signals Australia is successfully transitioning away from mining. Just as a sharp increase in demand from China for iron ore pushed up prices for the metal to a peak in 2011, so now is the Asian behemoth’s shift toward consumption pushing up prices for beef.

“As countries get richer, their diets change and they prefer higher quality food products, and I think that’s a big part of the beef story,” said Paul Bloxham, chief Australia economist at HSBC Holdings. “We think it’s still got further scope to pick up. There’s still a lot more people to enter the middle-class in China and preferences are shifting quite quickly.”

Food safety

Farmers like Burton-Taylor at his Kenny’s Creek property are capitalising on Australia’s reputation for high-quality produce at a time of dwindling trust among Chinese citizens in the safety of their own food. Scandals ranging from babies poisoned by tainted milk powder to dead pigs found floating in a river regularly remind Chinese consumers that the produce they eat might not be safe.

“The long-term prospects for exports are strong, but we are naturally mindful that beef producers in Brazil have started to compete more aggressively,” said Burton-Taylor, who sells meat from his property outside Canberra to restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai. Competing with Brazil to sell commodities to China is nothing new for Australia – the two nations are key suppliers of iron ore as well.

The Chinese are also changing their diet. For centuries China’s favoured meat has been pork, partly because backyard pigs not only supplied meat, but were good at turning waste into manure. Until recently, beef – once known as “millionaire’s meat” – was very rare.

California drought

Australian beef sales to the US also soared last year as drought gripped California and depleted livestock there. In the past three years sales to the US, the biggest buyer of beef from Down Under, have almost tripled to $2.9 billion.

“The US continues to yield a great return for beef producers with the bulk of the product being lean grinding meat, which is often used in hamburgers,” said Michael Finucan, general manager international markets at Meat & Livestock Australia. “We are also seeing a substantial pick-up in the sale of high-quality grass fed beef, which is lean and appeals to health conscious consumers.”

Burton-Taylor, who was raised on a farm, studied accounting and worked in business before returning to the land, said he visited China more than a dozen times to secure buyers.

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

China To Buy More Gold As it Sells Reserves

China Continues To Buy More Gold As it Sells Other Foreign Reserves

China’s central bank continues to see the value of diversifying into gold as it continues to purchase the precious metal on a monthly basis in the midst of falling total reserves.

According to media reports, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added 580,000 ounces of gold to its official reserves last month; the bank now hold a total of 57.18 million ounces of gold, an increase of 0.9% from December.

The news of China’s latest gold purchases follows more data from the PBOC, showing total foreign reserves fell $99.5 billion to $3.23 trillion in January, the lowest level since May 2012. It was also the second biggest decline in reserves, just behind December’s considerable $108 billion decline.

According to some analysts and economists, China has been busy selling some of its foreign reserves and buying the yuan to prop up its weakening currency and fragile stock market.

Jeffrey Nichols, senior economic advisor at Rosland Capital and managing director at American Precious Metals Advisors, said that he is not surprised to see China buying more gold while it sells its other reserves like U.S. dollars and U.S. Treasuries.

Nichols said that the central bank’s plan to buy gold is part of its plan to make the yuan a more international and tradeable currency. Along with trying to stabilize its economy, the central bank is also diversifying its reserves away from the U.S. dollar, he said.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

The Unreal, Eerie Emptiness of China’s ‘Ghost Cities’

THE KANGBASHI DISTRICT of Ordos, China is a marvel of urban planning, 137-square miles of shining towers, futuristic architecture and pristine parks carved out of the grassland of Inner Mongolia. It is a thoroughly modern city, but for one thing: No one lives there.

Well, almost nobody. Kangbashi is one of hundreds of sparkling new cities sitting relatively empty throughout China, built by a government eager to urbanize the country but shunned by people unable to afford it or hesitant to leave the rural communities they know. Chicago photographer Kai Caemmerer visited Kangbashi and two other cities for his ongoing series Unborn Cities. The photos capture the eerie sensation of standing on a silent street surrounded by empty skyscrapers and public spaces devoid of life. “These cities felt slightly surreal and almost uncanny,” Caemmerer says, “which I think is a product of both the newness of these places and the relative lack of people within them.”

China has built hundreds of new cities over the last three decades as it reshapes itself into an urbanized nation with a plan to move 250 million rural inhabitants—more than six times the population of California—into cities by 2026. The newly minted cities help showcase the political accomplishments of local government officials, who reason that real estate and urban development is a safe, high-return investment that can help fuel economic growth.

But it’s hard to start a city from scratch. Most people don’t want to live somewhere that feels dead, and these new cities sometimes lack the jobs and commerce needed to support those who would live there. In Kangbashi, the government used some administrative tricks to address this, relocating bureaucratic buildings and schools, then trying to convince people in surrounding villages to move in. It had minor success. Today, a city designed for at least 500,000 has around 100,000 inhabitants.

“Cities and districts built without demand or necessity resulted in what some Chinese scholars have termed, literally,’walls without markets’,” says William Hurst, political science professor at Northwestern University. “Or what we might translate as uncompleted or hollow cities. Political exigency and investment hysteria trumped economic calculus or consideration of genuine human needs.”

Caemmerer learned about these cities early last year after reading a slew of “almost sensationalist” articles that painted them as modern ghost towns. Fascinated, he decided to visit China and see them himself. He spent almost three months exploring three cities during two trips last spring and fall.

More…

About the Author

Mark Schlarbaum

Page 10 of 15
←
1
...
9
10
11
...
15
→