China

The WSJ had a frightening article about the scope of the ageing problem faced by the Chinese.

I will not bother to give your the URL since I am almost certain it is subscription only.

This Spiegel Online article rather stopped me in my tracks. Acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid is currently designing 11 projects across China including the quite beautiful Wangjing SOHO complex in Beijing. It seems that in the land where anything can be copied, architectural 'pirates' have cloned the design of the complex and construction teams are busy building a replica in faraway Chongqing.

What is currently planned at Alibaba, Tencent, Sina, and Baidu worth an additional paper. My duty is to continue the story published last year and called “Chinese Internet industry ready to grow beyond borders”.

post by: Jon Stokes

New Chinese social media sites have long been inspired by popular sites and trends from the West, such as Facebook’s distant cousin Renren and Twitter’s brother Sina Weibo.  It is no surprise then that they have embraced Pinterest with both arms.

The Year of the Dragon – traditionally the year of big, innovative ideas and breakthrough projects - might just be the year that China's creative class enters the global spotlight. The latest signal comes from the art world, where the market for Chinese artwork is exploding, putting new Chinese artists on the same footing as the greatest names in the Western artistic tradition.

Guest Post by: Hamid Sirhan

Brands and businesses are trying, more and more, to engage Chinese audiences online, particularly consumer and FMCG brands.

I thought this was an interesting development - 5 cities in India holding 3 day retirement events - Retirement India Expo 2011.

“This is India’s first attempt to galvanise businesses in ageing,” said Sheilu Sreenivasan, founder president, Dignity Foundation, a 16-year-old NGO specialising in productive ageing opportunities.

China has the biggest market for social networks in the world. Restrictions by the Chinese government has caused several western social networks (e.g. Facebook) difficulty from entering the market, while native platforms have thrived.

What will it take for the Western world to change its mind about what "Made in China" signifies? Unfortunately, for most people, those three words - "Made in China" - carry all kinds of unintended economic baggage: cheap, shoddily-made goods; the loss of tens of thousands U.S. jobs; inhuman factory conditions in urban sweatshops; and a giant export machine that is causing a massive trade deficit for the U.S.

Guest Post by: Hamid Sirhan

Social media competition in China is beginning to heat up. Facebook and Groupon are looking at engaging the Chinese market as soon as possible and it looks like 2011 will be the pivotal year for Chinese social media.