Bottom line: China's drive to boost imports will benefit the nation's big e-commerce companies with cross-border trade capabilities, though such purchasing will still be a small fraction of their overall volume.

It may be election day in the US, but here in China the focus is decidedly on imports with the staging this week of a massive import-focused expo in Shanghai. This particular event, officially called the China International Import Expo, has big political overtones, which I've looked a...

Bottom line: Alibaba's new investment in grocery operator Sun Art looks like a shrewd move into an area where logical synergies between online and offline shopping can be achieved.

Alibaba buys into Sun Art

Bottom line: Unicom's choice of 14 partners for a mixed-ownership reform plan involving its Shanghai-listed unit is far too many, and is ultimately likely to fail when those partners become frustrated and sell their shares.

Unicom puts 14 new partners into its mix

Bottom line: China's VNO program appears to be gaining momentum heading into its third year, and could reach the 200 million subscriber mark by the end of 2017.

Virtual network operators gain momentum

It's been more than a year since I last wrote about China's fledgling attempt to breathe new life into its telecoms services sector by creating virtual network operators (VNO), mostly because the program seemed to be sputtering in its first couple of years. But new data fro...