Juliana Liu

At the  ‘BTS The Comeback Live Arirang’ concert in central Seoul on Mar 21, the super boy band explicitly highlighted its heritage to the world.

BTS is South Korea’s biggest cultural catfish

When the band went on hiatus in 2022, K-pop lost an anchor and a catfish – a player that puts pressure on its peers, spurring them to compete and improve. Now they’re back

Three of the most successful Chinese firms – Temu, Shein and TikTok – have tried to distance themselves from their roots. None has succeeded, the writer notes.
THE BOTTOM LINE

Why firms are pivoting from ‘China-shedding’ to ‘China-maxxing’

The approach of hiding one’s ties to Beijing has run its course for the bigger players

China is in the middle of a wellness boom that is influencing the way people dress, offering a rare bright spot in an otherwise struggling retail sector.

China is now an outdoors nation

With Beijing aiming to expand its sports economy to seven trillion yuan by 2030, the wellness boom could stretch into the new year

Fans dancing outside a stadium in France prior to a concert by South Korean group Blackpink. Audience data shows that there are now far more K-pop fans outside South Korea than at home.

The ‘K’ in K-pop is already silent. And that’s ok

Korean pop isn’t being colonised – it’s the other way around

After years of warnings, the regulatory wheels are starting to turn in two of Tesla’s biggest markets, the US and China, offering sharply divergent approaches.
THE BOTTOM LINE

China shows the way on dangerous car doors

Electric vehicles’ pervasiveness has led to widespread concern that if power shuts due to an accident or dead battery, passengers may be trapped inside