The Year of the Tiger (虎年) is now more than a week old; but major Chinese websites still wear the auspicious red and yellow colours, sign that the festivities are not over yet. The country is still in the return phase of its annual migration.
Every year on new year’s eve the Chinese Central Television (中央电视台) broadcasts a special live New Year’s Evening (春晚) program. For many, watching this program with the whole family has become part of the new year celebrations. It consists of a series of humorous sketches, performances by famous pop singers, acrobatics (杂技); etc.
With the massive popularization of the internet, this one-time event has now been multiplied in a series of small sequences that live on and can be viewed and reviewed on the net.
On the 14. February it will be time to enter a new cycle according to the Chinese lunar calendar. The year of the tiger will replace the year of the ox. Every year around this time a flow of travelers returning home to celebrate the Chinese New Year festivities with their families puts the country’s transportation network under big stress. This massive population movement is called “Spring Transportation” (春运).
“Research and work out the country’s energy development policy; ponder the major issues related to energy security and energy development; plan and coordinate the exploitation of the country’s energy resources as well as the energy-related international cooperation.” These are the main responsibilities of the newly created National Energy Commission (国家能源委员会) as described in the State Council’s (国务院) official notice on the 12. of January 2010.
This National Energy Commission is now China’s highest ranking administrative body in energy matters. Before, there was no ministerial level entity specifically in charge of energy. The different duties were scattered among several institutions and ministries.
“Most companies fail during the five first years of their life. Those who survive, won’t last, if they don’t get ill at least once. I believe now is the time, when Alipay begins confronting its problems.” These were the words of Jack Ma (马云), the charismatic founder and CEO of the Alibaba Group (阿里巴巴集团) at Alipay (支付宝)’s annual meeting earlier this January. Alipay is “China’s leading third-party online payment platform”. Founded in December 2004, it plays a key role in Alibaba’s activities as a provider of online trade and retail solutions.
During the same meeting, Jack Ma also exhorted Alipay employees to be less conservative and criticized the company’s consumer experience: “ If we don’t pay attention to our consumer’s experience, Alipay will slowly die away.” Right now Alipay doesn’t look moribund at all. It is clearly the market leader in China, as is Taobao (淘宝), Alibaba’s online retail website. But Jack Ma knows that e-commerce is developing very rapidly in China. Some have already predicted that 2010 will be the Golden Year (黄金年) of e-commerce.
It is now less than hundred days until the opening of the Shanghai World Expo 2010 and the Thailand pavilion is already letting visitors in. We are talking here about the virtual online version of the Expo. Thailand is the first country to open its virtual pavilion.
Virtual pavilions are replicas of the actual pavilions. When you visit the online version of the Shanghai World Expo 2010 and walk by the Thailand pavilion, you now get the possibility to click on “enter”. This will take you into the Thailand pavilion. Once in the pavilion, the visitor can walk around, get explanations about the pavilion’s theme, watch videos, etc.
The future Chinese satellite navigation system Beidou (北斗) has one more satellite in the sky. On the 17. January, the third satellite was successfully launched from the Xichang (西昌) launching station in Sichuan (四川) province. The launching rocket was a Long March CZ-3C (长征三号丙).
“Become Asia’s biggest production center for laptops.” This is the ambition of the authorities of the city of Chongqing (重庆) in Southwestern China. Some 2000 kilometers away from the sea, Chongqing is located at the confluence of Jialing River (嘉陵江) and Yangtze River (长江). Its situation next to these fluvial roads has made out of Chongqing an industrial city and an attraction pole for workers from neighbouring provinces.
Important industrial activities in Chongqing are car and motorbike factories, chemical industry and heavy industry (steel, aluminum). Furthermore, the region is rich in natural resources like natural gas and the service sector is rapidly expanding. But now a new activity is planned to multiply the city’s industrial capacity.
Acer’s (宏碁) prospects for the near future look rather rosy. In 2009, the Taiwanese company came third in units shipped worldwide for the whole year. It is successfully surfing on the cheap laptops wave, which boosted shipments in the last quarter of 2009. To emphasize its position as a global brand, Acer signed into the Olympic partnership program (TOP) for Vancouver 2010 and London 2012. It is taking over from Lenovo (联想), which was the computer manufacturing TOP partner for Torino 2006 and Beijing 2008.
But there is one market, where Acer could do better: China. So far Acer has failed to be among the top three in China (something it has achieved in the US and worldwide). Simply put, Acer isn’t well known as a brand in China. According to zol.com.cn’s brand awareness index, these were the most popular computer brands in China in 2009:
Following are some thoughts and observations about the state of Google’s affairs in China. Statements are uttered, allegations are made, lots of speculation everywhere; but it seems much too early to draw any conclusions.
- Two big communications by Google about its China (ex?) activities in the same week. The two announcements couldn’t have been more different in tone and language.
- 1. Google’s letter to the Chinese Writers Association: apologies written in Chinese.
- 2. Google’s blog post “A new approach to China”: a statement, written in English, that Google has been led to “review the feasibility of its business in China”.
