Cissy Zhou

China’s big four state-owned commercial banks have started large-scale internal testing of what would be the world’s first sovereign digital currency, according to mainland media.  The state-owned commercial banks are working on the digital yuan with the central bank in major cities, including the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, the Guangzhou-based 21st Century Business Herald reported on Thursday. Different from decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, Beijing’s digital currency is expected to give the government more power in tracing the movement of money within the second-biggest economy. Instead of allowing transactions to happen outside of a central authority – like what bitcoin does

A bus driver deliberately drove his vehicle off the road into a reservoir in southern China last week, killing 21 people on board in what police called an act of revenge against society over the government demolition of his former home. In Anshun, in the southern province of Guizhou, public security authorities said on Sunday that the 52-year-old driver, identified only by his surname Zhang, went to the residence on Tuesday morning. Zhang had permanent lease rights to the home, which was owned by a local authority, but the structure was earmarked for demolition as part of a “shantytown redevelopment plan.” He called a government hotline, complaining that his residence should not be destroye

A dramatic deterioration in US-China relations in recent days has convinced current and former government advisers on both sides that bilateral ties have plummeted to their lowest point in decades. Over the past week, the Trump administration has threatened to scrap an initial trade deal and increase tariffs on China, backed tough new export controls for Chinese firms buying American tech products, and continued to push theories claiming the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. The White House is also “turbocharging” an initiative among “friendly nations” to push manufacturing supply chains out of China, according to Reuters.  And a leaked report from the US Departme

A “wild feeding frenzy” is under way in China for medical equipment crucial to containing the spread of the coronavirus around the world. Scalpers stake out factories with suitcases loaded with cash to secure millions of surgical masks hot off the production line. Dealers trade ventilators back and forth as if they were cargos of coal before they finally reach the end buyer carrying eye-watering mark-ups. Governments wire eight-figure sums of money for vital equipment only to lose out to another government that was quicker to produce the cash. We are slap bang in the middle of a gold rush for the year’s most sought-after commodities – masks, gloves, thermometers, ventilators, hospital beds,

Basketball legend Michael Jordan’s 8-year-long saga through the Chinese courts resulted in a partial victory for his intellectual property case against a Chinese sports brand. China’s top judicial body, the Supreme People’s Court, on March 4 found Qiaodan Sports, a company based in China’s southern Fujian province, had illegally used Jordan’s name in Chinese characters, according to the verdict. However, the court also ruled that the dribbling silhouette used as the Chinese company’s logo did not violate Jordan’s portraiture rights, meaning Qiaodan Sports could continue to use the image.   China's Supreme People's Court has handed basketball legend #MichaelJordan's brand #AirJordan a victory

Before the coronavirus crisis began rippling through the global economy, Susan Wang had big plans for 2020. Not only was she going to buy a new Apple MacBook and iPad, plus a projector so she could host friends for movies at home, but she was set on making a career move. “I was planning to change my job, but my headhunter told me that all recruitment had been postponed to the second quarter,” said the 27-year-old who works for a British company in Hong Kong. “Our headquarters in London has a plan for redundancy, too. It is better to save some money in case I get laid off.” As Covid-19 spreads across the world, sending stock markets reeling and prompting companies to slash jobs, Wang has bec

China has threatened more curbs on US media operating in the country after saying it will expel journalists from three American newspapers. “China called on the US to stop suppressing Chinese media. If the US continues to be on the wrong track, China will be forced to take further countermeasures,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Wednesday.  The Ministry said on Tuesday it was revoking the press credentials for American journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, describing it as a response to the Trump administration’s recent measures against Chinese state media outlets in the United States. Washington last month labeled five Ch

The first shipment of Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s donation of 1 million masks and 500,000 coronavirus test kits to the United States arrived in the US on Monday morning. The supplies, which will be distributed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), were purchased in China since its factories have gradually resumed production. The shipment of a second batch will depend on availability, said a spokesman at the Jack Ma Foundation. Ma is the co-founder of Alibaba, which owns Inkstone.  The US is facing a shortage of kits for diagnosing the deadly contagion, which has led to widespread criticism of the federal government for its slowness in preparedness and response.  Publ

At an event in Washington on Friday, Florida senator Rick Scott used the term “Communist China” 25 times in a 10-minute speech. Scott was pushing the idea that the coronavirus outbreak should be used as a wedge to pry apart the US-China relationship. “I think there is going to be more decoupling, as we’re seeing with the coronavirus. I think people are saying to themselves, are we too dependent on a country that acts as an adversary? And I think that is going to cause some people to rethink their supply chains,” Scott told a crowd gathered at the Hudson Institute, a think tank. While Scott has been one of the most strident advocates in the Trump administration for tougher measures against Ch

Retired Wuhan factory worker Wei Junlan had always been in good health, but around two weeks after developing the first signs of a cough and fever, the 63-year-old was dead from what doctors suspect was the new coronavirus. But her death on January 21 will not show up in official statistics about the outbreak – her death certificate listed the cause only as “heavy pneumonia.” Her nephew Jerry Shang said that Wei had not been tested for the disease, but that the doctor said her symptoms – including a lung infection, fever and increasing weakness – closely matched those of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. By the end, she was unable to walk, and the last the family saw of her was when