Tag: china

All eyes on Shanghai International Art Fair

Asia, Business, China, Financial News

Whilst the majority of the Western world enters a much feared second lockdown due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic crisis, all eyes were on China as the 2nd edition of the Shanghai International Art Fair took place from the 19-22nd November 2020. With many of the world’s top art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach fair set for December 2020 cancelled, and the Frieze London and Frieze Masters 2020 moved online back in October, there is not much of the supposed global art world left to see in person. It is with baited breath then that the world’s art lovers and professionals alike look to Asia for the last vestiges of familiarity with the fairs of the past, and a clue as to what the fairs of the future – and who attends them in person – could be like. 

Is a global art world still possible?

Whether it is even possible to describe a global art world is something that has been much in debate as the financial growth of various local art markets have grown and their interconnectedness made more apparent. Buyers and dealers will often travel multiple times a year and wait apprehensively for figures to come in from one fair for an understanding about what might happen in the next. This massive trading of art and services was valued in 2018 at roughly 67 billion USD – a growth of 3 billion USD up from 64 billion USD in 2017. Whilst the majority of these sales were made offline there was already a growing trend in the number of online sales seen that many are expecting to increase further due to circumstances dedicated by the current pandemic. 

The majority of trade for the art market has previously been seen in North America, with hot sites such as New York and Los Angeles, seconded by the market in Europe featuring heavily in London, UK, although the Louvre in Paris, France tops the list as the world’s most visited art museum. China had previously come in third for total revenue for an art market, yet as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hinder trade in the West, art fairs like the most recent Shanghai International Art Fair are starting to emerge as potential key components in the art market’s future global growth.

CCTV facial recognition and the Hong Kong protests

Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Digital Systems Technology, Internet of Things (IoT)

August 24 marked another long day of clashes in Hong Kong between police and protestors.

The nearly three-month long protests generally choose their location based on certain problematic aspects of Hong Kong’s relationship with China. 

That day, the focus opposed police digital surveillance tactics, specifically the city’s installation of ‘smart lampposts’; street lights that come equipped with cameras and sensors. Hong Kong authorities insist the lampposts are only used to monitor weather, traffic, and air quality. 

Police and protestors on Aug 24

After riot police forcibly dispersed an initial gathering of tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens, groups of protestors broke off and regrouped in different neighborhoods. Several smart lamps were pulled down, dismantled, and occasionally kicked. Police fired projectiles, released tear gas, and wielded batons and riot gear while charging lines of protestors.

Facial recognition already common

Various facial recognition technologies and devices are already common across Hong Kong. They unlock mobile devices, confirm identities at ATMS, and identify individuals in photos based on their social media profile.

Suspicions of increased mainland monitoring

The renewed concern of protestors directly relates to the catalyst for the entire protest movement: the extradition bill that sought to allow Hong Kong citizens to be tried by the mainland Chinese judiciary system.

The general public simply does not trust the new cameras, many of them developed and sold by Chinese companies, to innocuously report weather and traffic data. 

China obviously wants the ability to extradite Hong Kong citizens for crimes committed outside of the mainland. A video surveillance network in which Chinese authorities can monitor individual Hong Kong citizens is a clear path towards building cases against political targets that could facilitate a case for extradition. 

WeChat Pay Partners up with Japan’s Line

Asia, ChinaNo Comments

WeChat, China’s hugely popular messaging and social media app, has announced plans to integrate with LINE, a similar app based in Japan. The partnership will unilaterally allow WeChat users to pay for goods and services over the Line platform.

WeChat

Tencent, a Chinese multinational holding conglomerate, released WeChat in 2011.  (Tencent has garnered a whopping zero out of 100 score from Amnesty International’s report on companies’ use of encryption to protect user data.)

WeChat Pay was introduced during the 2014 Lunar New Year, allowing users to send digital hongbao packets to friends and family. Users sent 20 million packets that year. In 2016, over 3 billion were sent.

The service has been wholeheartedly integrated into Chinese life. An estimated 900 million different accounts use WeChat Pay every month for private transfers, online goods and services shopping, and bill payments. Its messaging services have mostly replaced email for personal and business communications, the payment system largely renders credit cards obsolete, and its social media feeds and user “Moments” are one of China’s most popularly used media sharing platforms. It offers a stuffed animal, MonMon, for small children to send and receive WeChat voice messages from their parents. WeChat Pay can link to bank accounts in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and South Africa.

Line

Line was released in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami disrupted telecommunications across Japan. Within two years 300 million users had installed the text, voice, and video communication app. Today almost half of the Japanese population, an estimated 78 million, uses Line. It is also one of the most popular messaging apps in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia, with an estimated 164 million active users in those four countries. As of 2016, it had released over 320,000 sets of stickers. 

Line introduced Line Pay in December 2014. Like WeChat Pay, it facilitates user to user as well as user to merchant payments. In 2016, it released a free card that could be used for in-store purchases. It also allows the use of Line Taxi, a popular ride-hailing service in Japan.

One app, two countries

The cooperation between the two is intended to simplify payments for Chinese tourists or visitors in Japan. WeChat users will be able to buy goods and services in Japan without exchanging cash, or setting up a Line Pay account of their own. Line, which offers end to end encryption, is banned by the Chinese government.