China
Background advertising + Container congestion + Censorship on LinkedIn
Dear reader,
China is playing a prominent role in the European Championship – at least on the perimeter advertising and as an official partner of the organizing UEFA. Christiane Kuehl not only took a closer look at the four goals scored by the German team against Portugal but also scrutinized the so-called "Sponsoring Soft Power". Chinese companies are cleverly using the European Championship as a platform to present themselves to fans internationally – including a Cologne advertising ambassador.
As closely interwoven as the economic world is here, global logistics currently appear to be fragile. As recently as March, a ship blocked the bottleneck of the Suez Canal for six days. On satellite images, we observed the transverse colossus and the ships jamming at the north and south ends of the canal. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk analyzes the impact of COVID-19 infections among workers at the southern Chinese port of Yantian near Shenzhen on the flow of goods, and again satellite images provide important clues. Once again, container giants are jammed, freight rates are rising, goods are delayed, supply chains are disrupted. Global logistics are in a tight spot.
Meanwhile, another bridge between East and West is paying a high price for its determination to be represented in both worlds. Users on LinkedIn will become invisible if they include content critical of China in their profiles, as Marcel Grzanna reports. The platform announced that the profiles of two users will not be accessible from China in the future. LinkedIn is responding to censorship requests from the Chinese government. It is not the first company to bend to the wishes of the Chinese Communist Party. Its influence is far-reaching these days.
