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TOPIC: shanghai

Economy

Tea Be Damned! Inside The Massive Starbucks Bet On China's Shift To Coffee

A gigantic and multi-faceted new location near Shanghai epitomizes the American giant's ambition to quench China's growing but still-nascent thirst for coffee.

Updated Dec. 7, 2023 at 4:05 p.m.

SHANGHAI — The town of Kunshan, an hour's drive from Shanghai, is the launchpad of Starbucks's latest Chinese offensive. In mid-September, the American giant inaugurated an 80,000 square meter site that includes a roasting plant, an integrated distribution centre, and an immersive experience centre.

Grandly named as the "China Coffee Innovation Park", this $220 million project is the Seattle-headquartered company's biggest investment outside the United States. And the Kunshan model of vertical integration, from bean to cup, has no equivalent anywhere else in the world for the Starbucks group.

The site is a symbol of Starbucks’s hefty ambitions in China – it plans to open a location in the country every nine hours between now and 2025. The aim is to have more than 9,000 shops in 300 Chinese cities by then, compared with 6,500 today. "The 9,000 stores are just a milestone", said Laxman Narasimhan, the company's new boss, who rushed to China at the end of May in the wake of his appointment.

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Is the competition getting tougher? Has the end of the China’s "Zero-COVID" policy failed to deliver on its promise of an economic rebound? Is Washington pushing its multinationals to reduce their dependence on China?

Starbucks doesn't care. In the land of tea-drinkers, coffee is enjoying a meteoric rise, becoming a trendy drink for a young, urban middle class sensitive to Western influences.

The China focus comes amid news this week that McDonalds is launching a new kind of cafe-restaurant: CosMc's, which could be a direct competitor worldwide to Starbucks, serving customizable drinks like "s'mores and cold brew", "churro frappes", and "tumeric latte."

Some 10,000 CosMc locations are planned for opening over the next four years, with Starbucks expanding to 55,000 stores worldwide by 2030.

All of this speaks to coffee fever globally, which really began in China just a decade ago, and now registering double-digit growth rates that have manufacturers salivating.

"We expect China to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest market we have in the world," Narasimhan predicts.

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A Refuge From China's Rat Race: The Young People Flocking To Buddhist Monasteries

Unemployment, stress in the workplace, economic difficulties: more and more young Chinese graduates are flocking to monasteries to find "another school of life."

JIAXING — It's already dawn at Xianghai Temple when Lin, 26, goes to the Hall of 10,000 Buddhas for the 5:30 a.m. prayer.

Still half-asleep, the young woman joins the monks in chanting mantras and reciting sacred texts for an hour. Kneeling, she bows three times to Vairocana, also known as the Great Sun Buddha, who dominates the 42-meter-high hall representing the cosmos.

Before grabbing a vegetarian breakfast in the adjacent refectory, monks and devotees chant around the hall to the sound of drums and gongs.

"I resigned last October from the e-commerce company where I had been working for the past two years in Nanjing, and joined the temple in January, where I am now a volunteer in residence," explains the young woman, soberly dressed in black pants and a cream linen jacket.

Located in the city of Jiaxing, over a hundred kilometers from Shanghai, in eastern China, the Xianghai temple is home to some 20 permanent volunteers.

Unlike Lin, most of them only stay for a couple days or a few weeks. But for Lin, who spends most of her free time studying Buddhist texts in the temple library, the change in her life has been radical. "I used to do the same job every day, sometimes until very late at night, writing all kinds of reports for my boss. I was exhausted physically and mentally. I felt my life had no meaning," she says.

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Ya Ya, Between A Broken Heart And Big Chill In Giant Panda Diplomacy

This is the story of Ya Ya, a female panda whose fate captures for the degrading relationship and eroding trust between China and the U.S.

-Analysis-

Ya Ya, a Chinese Giant Panda, had been living at the Memphis Zoo in the United States for 20 years, beginning back in the days when the relationship between Beijing and Washington was far more cordial. Her arrival was part of what's known as "panda diplomacy", when Beijing lent out its beloved signature animals as a sign of friendship.

Ya Ya was in a relationship, if we can use this term, with Le Le, a male panda. But Le Le died in 2021, from heart complications, and Ya Ya never seemed to recover from his death. She started to lose weight, her coat faded. This is when politics flared up.

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Did Climate Change Cause The Fall Of The Ming Dynasty?

In the mid-17th century, the weather in China got colder. The frequency of droughts and floods increased while some regions were wiped out by tragic famines. And the once-unstoppable Ming dynasty began to lose power.

The accounts are chilling. In the summary of his course on modern Chinese history at the Collège de France, Pierre-Etienne Will examined journals held by various individuals, often part of the Chinese administration, during the final years of the Ming dynasty. These autobiographical writings were almost always kept secret, but they allow us to immerse ourselves in the everyday life of the first half of 17th-century China.

In the Jiangnan region, close to Shanghai and generally considered as a land of plenty, the 1640s did not bode well. The decade that had just ended was characterized by an abnormally cold and dry climate and poor harvests. The price of agricultural goods kept rising, pushing social tension to bursting points.

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Coronavirus
Dan Wu

China's "Two-Legged Sheep" And The Cost Of COVID Discrimination

As China holds firm in its zero-COVID approach, discrimination against those who have tested positive is rampant. Some even find themselves homeless and jobless. Now, the government is trying to tackle the stigma, but it won't be easy.

On July 9, the story of Afen, a young girl living in the restrooms of Shanghai Hongqiao train station, spread rapidly on Chinese social media. The girl was reported to be jobless and homeless because she had once contracted COVID. In post-lockdown Shanghai, many recruiters refused to give jobs to those who had been infected or who had worked in hospitals. Such demands in Shanghai’s labor market were not just seen in companies and firms but also in manual part-time jobs.

And even shelters might not host people who had tested positive for the virus. In Shanghai alone, thousands of workers like Afen were left with no choice but to live on the streets and struggle for their survival.

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In The News
Lila Paulou, Lisa Berdet, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger

100 Days Of Ukraine War, Shanghai Back In Lockdown, “Turkey” No More

👋 မင်္ဂလာပါ!*

Welcome to Friday, where Ukraine marks 100 days since the beginning of the Russian offensive, French arms manufacturers are accused of complicity in Yemen war crimes, and Turkey says call us Türkiye. Meanwhile, German daily Die Welt tunes in with Anatoly Dremov, a Russian soldier whose on-the-ground war videos are going viral — much to the Kremlin’s chagrin.

[*Mingalaba - Burmese]

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In The News
Lisa Berdet, Joel Silvestri, Lila Paulou and Bertrand Hauger

West To Arm Ukraine, Deadly Brazil Rainstorm, Nadal Tears Up

👋 Салам!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where the U.S. and Germany announce new military aid for Ukraine, at least 100 are confirmed dead as floods and landslides hit Brazil, and an iconic movie vehicle gets an ecological update. For Worldcrunch, Anna Akage also writes about the dire situation in Russia’s overpopulated detention centers, where Ukrainian “spies and traitors” are locked up without trial.

[*Salam - Kyrgyz]

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In The News
Lisa Berdet, Anne-Sophie Goninet, Lila Paulou, Joel Silvestri and Bertrand Hauger.

Key EU Ukraine Summit, Shanghai Reopening, Whale Lost In The Seine

👋 Ahoj!*

Welcome to Monday, where EU leaders try to overcome divisions on Russian sanctions, Shanghai lifts some of its COVID-19 restrictions and a killer whale dies after getting lost in the river Seine. Meanwhile, German Die Welt reports on fears in Georgia that its breakaway territory South Ossetia might be next in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.

[*Czech]

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In The News
Lisa Berdet, Lila Paulou, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger

More Surrender In Mariupol, Sri Lanka Defaults On Debt, Vincent Van LEGO

👋 Sveiki!*

Welcome to Thursday, where more Ukrainian soldiers surrender in Mariupol, Sri Lanka defaults on its debt,and George W. Bush offers an epic geopolitical gaffe. Meanwhile, Lili Bai in Chinese-language digital media The Initium looks at what’s driving the current “expat exodus” at play in Shanghai.

[*Latvian]

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Coronavirus
Lili Bai

In Shanghai, A Brewing Expat Exodus As COVID Crackdown Shows "Real" China

Not only strict rules of freedom of movement as part of Zero-COVID policy but also an increase in censorship has raised many questions for the expat population in the megacity of 26 million that had long enjoyed a kind of special status in China as a place of freedom and openness. A recent survey of foreigners in the Chinese megacity found that 48% of respondents said they would leave Shanghai within the next year.

SHANGHAI — On the seventh day of the lockdown, Félix, a French expat who has worked in Shanghai for four years, texted his boss: I want to "run,' mais je sais pas quand (but I don’t know when). A minute later, he received a reply: moi aussi (me too).

Félix had recently learned the new Mandarin word 润 (run) from social network postings of his local friends. Because its pinyin “rùn” is the same as the English word “run,” Chinese youth had begun to use it to express their wish to escape reality, either to “be freed from mundane life”, or to “run toward your future.”

For foreigners like Félix, by associating the expression “run” with the feeling of the current lockdown in Shanghai, “everything makes sense.” Félix recalled how at the end of March, the government denied rumors of an impending lockdown: “My Chinese colleagues all said, Shanghai is China’s top city, there would be no lockdown no matter what.”

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In The News
Lila Paulou, Lisa Berdet, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger

Moscow-Washington War Of Words, Kim Jong-un’s Nuclear Threat, World’s Oldest Person Dies

👋 Kia ora!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where there’s an escalation of rhetoric between Russia and Washington, Kim Jong-un issues a nuclear threat and the world’s oldest person dies at age 119. Meanwhile, news website Livy Bereg looks at past examples of economic recoveries in countries that were destroyed by war, to see what lessons could be drawn for Ukraine.

[*Maori]

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In The News
Lisa Berdet, Emma Albright and Anne-Sophie Goninet

Ukraine War, Phase 2: The Battle For Donbas Begins

👋 Moien!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where the battle for Donbas begins, tensions are rising in Gaza after Israel’s airstrike and Biden’s mask mandate for air travel is struck down. Meanwhile, Ukrainian journalist Anna Akage zeroes in on the strategic significance of the city of Mariupol in this second phase of the Ukraine war.


[*Luxembourgish]

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