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TOPIC: china

Future

Livestream Shopping Is Huge In China — Will It Fly Elsewhere?

Streaming video channels of people shopping has been booming in China, and is beginning to win over customers abroad as a cheap and cheerful way of selling products to millions of consumers glued to the screen.

SANTIAGOTikTok, owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, has spent more than $500 million to break into online retailing. The app, best known for its short, comical videos, launched TikTok Shop in August, aiming to sell Chinese products in the U.S. and compete with other Chinese firms like Shein and Temu.

Tik Tok Shop will have three sections, including a live or livestream shopping channel, allowing users to buy while watching influencers promote a product.

This choice was strategic: in the past year, live shopping has become a significant trend in online retailing both in the U.S. and Latin America. While still an evolving technology, in principle, it promises good returns and lower costs.

Chilean Carlos O'Rian Herrera, co-founder of Fira Onlive, an online sales consultancy, told América Economía that live shopping has a much higher catchment rate than standard website retailing. If traditional e-commerce has a rate of one or two purchases per 100 visits to your site, live shopping can hike the ratio to 19%.

Live shopping has thrived in China and the recent purchases of shopping platforms in some Latin American countries suggests firms are taking an interest. In the United States, live shopping generated some $20 billion in sales revenues in 2022, according to consultants McKinsey. This constituted 2% of all online sales, but the firm believes the ratio may become 20% by 2026.

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What The China-Morocco Alliance Says About Our Geopolitical Future

As the world's technologies change, so do the countries with not only advantages in production, but also geography and diplomacy. China knows this, and sees that investing in Moroccan resources is a particularly smart bet in the long run.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Amid the global reshuffling triggered by both the ecological and geopolitical upheaval, there is one country that seems to be coming out ahead: Morocco.

Several major investments have already been announced, including one last week worth $2 billion by a Chinese group which aims to produce electric battery components. A significant detail, according to the Financial Times, is that the conglomerate Al-Mada, which is owned by the Moroccan royal family, is investing in the joint venture with the Chinese group CNGR.

Other South Korean and Chinese investments, still related to ecological transition minerals or the battery industry, have announced they will be setting up shop in Morocco in recent months. They are setting a record for the Mediterranean basin.

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The West Has An Answer To China's New Silk Road — With A Lift From The Gulf

The U.S. and Europe are seeking to rival China by launching a huge joint project. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States will also play a key role – because the battle for world domination is not being fought on China’s doorstep, but in the Middle East.

BERLIN — When world leaders are so keen to emphasize the importance of a project, we may well be skeptical. “This is a big deal, a really big deal,” declared U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this month.

The "big deal" he's talking about is a new trade and infrastructure corridor planned to be built between India, the Middle East and Europe.

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Russia's Dependence On China Is Deep And Wide — It May Also Be Irreversible

Russia is digging itself into a hole as it becomes increasingly dependent on China, as a result of international sanctions and isolation. This shifting dynamic, analysts argue, is bound to have ripple effects around the world

-Analysis-

Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored a "huge own goal" with the war in Ukraine, according to CIA Director William Burns.

He was referring to Russia's losses at the front, international sanctions, the expansion of NATO and Russia's growing dependence on China — something that has escalated in recent years and may well become one of the enduring challenges Putin's government has created for Russia.

The risks associated with this final point, the deepening dependence on China, are substantial — and breaking free from it will prove to be a formidable task.

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Russia's evolving relationship with China has become a focal point in international geopolitics and economics. This transformation has been catalyzed by a combination of factors, including Western sanctions, Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and China's meteoric rise in the global economy since the early 2000s.

The shift in Russia's economic alignment toward China began in earnest in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict and the resulting Western sanctions. Prior to this, Russia had maintained strong trade ties with Europe, particularly in energy exports. But as sanctions took hold, Russia turned to China as an alternative trading partner and a source of investment.

These hopes for increased commerce between the two countries come as Moscow seeks continued support for its war on Ukraine. China's top diplomat Wang Yi is currently visiting Russia for security talks, which Russian media say could pave the way for Vladimir Putin visiting Beijing soon.

Yet despite attempts to gain diplomatic punch from such a visit, Putin would arrive in the Chinese capital weaker and more beholden to China than ever.

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Geopolitics
Huang Yi Ying

Every Step, Every Swipe: Inside China's System Of Total Surveillance Of Uyghurs

Research by anthropologist Darren Byler provides a rare look inside the surveillance state China has created to control the Uyghur population of Xinjiang province, where every move is tracked, people are forced to carry cell phones, and "re-education camps" await anyone suspected of trying to break free.

With the release of police files and internal documents from Xinjiang's re-education camps, as well as testimonies from exiles in Xinjiang, the world has been able to get a better grasp of the reality of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) control over the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its human rights abuses.

Since the end of last year, a number of testimonies and publications have been revealed describing the experiences of people who have endured the re-education camps.

Research by anthropologist Darren Byler, assistant professor of international studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, provides an insightful, raw look at the experiences of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Byler is an internationally recognized researcher on Uyghur society and China's surveillance system, and has been active in advocating for Uyghur human rights as a witness to the re-education system and surveillance governance in Xinjiang.

Singapore-based media news outlet Initium Media interviewed Byler during a recent visit to Taiwan. He presents his insights on technological surveillance in Xinjiang and the lives of Uyghurs there, and emphasized that what has happened to the Uyghurs could happen to anyone.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War
Ekaterina Mereminskaya

The Science Of Designing A Sanctions Model That Really Hurts Moscow

On paper, the scale of sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine is unprecedented. But opinion on the impact of sanctions remains divided in the absence of a reliable scientific foundation. A new study by Bank of Canada offers a way out.

-Analysis-

The world has never seen sanctions like those imposed against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. There have been targeted sanctions, of course, or sanctions against rogue countries like North Korea with wide support from the international community. But never in history has there been such a large-scale sanctions regime against one of the world’s biggest and most important economies.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

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Here's the thing though: these sanctions were introduced in a hurry because the West needed to respond to the war decisively. No one calculated anything, they relied on generalizations and holistic visions, they were “groping in a dark room,” as Elina Rybakova, senior researcher at the Brussels think tank Bruegel, put it.

As a result, debates around the effectiveness of sanctions and how best to use them to influence Russia continue to do the rounds.

Supporters of sanctions have a clear and unified message: we must stop Russia from being able to continue this war. We must deprive them of the goods and technologies necessary for the production of weapons and military equipment, and prevent Russians from living normal lives.

Opponents argue that the sanctions backfire. They insist that Russia is a large enough economy, highly integrated into the energy market and international supply chains, and therefore has enough resilience to withstand restrictions. Those who impose sanctions will be the ones to lose markets and suppliers. They will face increased energy prices and countless other problems. Russia will be able to replace lost relationships with new and even stronger ties with other states.

Economists at the Bank of Canada have attempted to resolve this debate and figure out who is hit hardest by sanctions. They pieced together a model featuring three parties: a country imposing sanctions, a country against which they were imposed, and a third independent country.

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Society
Valeria Berghinz

Roe v Wade To Mexican Supreme Court: What's Driving Abortion Rights Around The World

A landmark decision Wednesday by the Mexican Supreme Court is part of a push in Latin America to expand abortion access. But as seen by the U.S. overturning Roe v. Wade last year, the issue is moving in different directions around the world.

Updated on September 8, 2023

PARIS — It has been 14 months and 15 days since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ruling that safe access to abortion is no longer a Constitutional right for American women.

For women in the rest of the world, the ruling reverberated on the weight of the U.S. judicial and cultural influence, with fears that it could have repercussions in their own courtrooms, parliaments and medical clinics.

Yet in what is perhaps the most momentous decision since Roe’s overturning, the U.S.’s southern neighbor, Mexico saw its own Supreme Court unanimously decree that abortion would be decriminalized nationwide, and inflicting any penalty on the medical procedure was “unconstitutional … and a violation of the human rights of women and those capable of being pregnant.”

Mexico is the latest (and most populous) Latin American country to expand reproductive rights, even as their northern neighbor continues to take steps backward on the issue.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Xi Jinping's G20 Absence — And Risks Of A Splintering World

There will be no Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping at this weekend's summit of the world's 20 leading economies in New Delhi: a symbol of the fragmentation of the world that has accelerated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

-Analysis-

If ever a symbol of the divisions in today's world was needed, the summit of the world's 20 leading economies, the G20, offers it to us on a silver platter.

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In The News
Anne-Sophie Goninet and Valeria Berghinz

Blinken In Kyiv, Extreme Weather Int’l, Klepto Koala

👋 Yumalundi!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on a surprise visit in Ukraine, August is the third month in a row to break temperature records, and Claude the koala is caught red-pawed. Meanwhile, Italian daily La Stampa gets a taste of AI-powered flirting.

[*Ngunnawal, New South Wales and ACT, Australia]

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Make No Mistake, The Hawks Are Running China

China released a new map where it borrows strips of lands from its neighbors. Although this is far from being the first time the country is involved in territorial disputes, Beijing's growing military shows it has the power (and will?) to try to make it a reality.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Imagine if tomorrow, one of France's neighbors published a map that showed entire swathes of French territory as its own. And did the same with many other neighbors. That is, in simple terms, what China did last week — and as you can image, its neighbors are not pleased at all.

The map, published by China's Ministry of Natural Resources and circulated on social media, has drawn condemnation from all of China's neighbors: Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and of course the special case of Taiwan, which Beijing considers to be a stray part of its own territory.

But the strongest reaction came from India, after two disputed Himalayan regions were presented as being part of China. Narendra Modi's government responded yesterday with a show of military force on the borders with Pakistan and China.

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Geopolitics
Marcelo Cantelmi

Why China Has Bet On A Bigger (And Nastier) BRICS To Challenge The West

The BRICS economies' inclusion of new members like Iran may not make business sense, but it fits with the Sino-Russian strategy of drawing states of the Global South into their orbit in open confrontation with the U.S. and the rest of the West.

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — Last month's summit in Johannesburg of BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), leading to a decision to expand the club, felt like geopolitical déjà vu. It recalled the 1960s Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of Third World states that refused, apparently, to take sides in the Cold War, either with the capitalist West or Soviet-led communism.

NAM neutrality was limited, often deceptive, and became obsolete with the fall of the Communist bloc in the late 1980s. The dilemma of what was then called the Third World — now, the Global South — was in the stance it should take toward Russia, the successor state to the Soviet Union that shared few of its traits and goals. Ideologically, the end of communism confused NAM: It didn't know what to do with itself.

That is until now, with an apparent resuscitation of its spirit in BRICS (formed in 2009). Yet the idea of equidistance ends there, as BRICS is led by Russia and communist China and increasingly a part of their open challenge to Western hegemony.

Its founders include Brazil, which has its own agenda, and India. Both states have adopted their own versions of neutrality in the Ukrainian crisis, first in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine,then after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

So far, says Oliver Stuenkel, a professor at Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation, the two states have resisted Russia's systematic bid to use an explicitly anti-Western vocabulary in BRICS documents. This, he says, would explain the vague tone of the group's resolutions.

South Africa, the last member to join the group (in 2010), is a lesser power in terms of economy and political clout. But it symbolizes the worldwide spirit the group would come to embody.

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Economy
Pravin Sawhney

Why India Should Bet On A BRICS Future (And Let G20 Pass On By)

With the G20 in New Delhi around the corner, India risks finding itself the wrong side of history, and end up as an observer and not one of the drivers of a "once in a lifetime" change.

-Analysis-

NEW DELHIIndia may believe it is in strategic competition with China over leadership of the Global South but the recent BRICS meet made it clear who is calling the shots. Watching from afar, the U.S.-led G7 nations could see that China was the key determinant of the summit’s accomplishments and that their own influence over the developing world had diminished substantially.

The biggest unsaid gain made by China was the deft shifting of its global geopolitical game – based on "common prosperity and cooperative security" — from east Asia to the 54-nation African continent. The attendance of some 35 African nations at the Johannesburg summit as South Africa’s invitees, followed by 50 African nations attending the third China-Africa Peace and Security forum in Beijing on Aug. 29 is testimony to the attraction President Xi Jinping’s "Global Development Initiative" (GDI) and "Global Security Initiative" (GSI) hold for the Global South.

The focus of the China-Africa Peace and Security forum was on peacekeeping (most of China’s 2,700+ peacekeepers are in Africa), counterterrorism, cyber security, humanitarian aid and military education.

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