China
Opportunities for China's cars + Private space launches
Dear reader,
When buying a product, not only is quality important for the purchase decision, but also the message behind the brand name. Here, even the most modern EVs from China continue to have a disadvantage in international markets. This is shown by a survey by the opinion research institute Civey, especially conducted for China.Table. Only one-fifth of those surveyed would currently buy a Chinese vehicle brand. Frank Sieren analyses what this means for the market entry of Nio, Lynk or MG (yes, they are now Chinese too).
Space travel has become smaller and less complicated. Instead of government programs running into the billions, agile private companies are taking over an ever larger share of the business. Not only do German companies want to follow US pioneers like SpaceX into this lucrative market, but also Chinese ones. As always in China, initial enthusiasm leads to overinvestment, productive chaos and a mad race between provinces. We look at whether this will make satellite launches dirt cheap in the future.
This time, our columnist Johnny Erling tells us about how he got to the bottom of China's most spectacular forgery. Between 1969 and 1970, construction workers secretly rebuilt the Tian'anmen Gate. As was customary in the Mao era, the project was surrounded by the utmost secrecy. China's rulers were already demonstrating their power over what the people were allowed to know and what they were not.
