STRATEGY & CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE
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EU-China Strategic Notes
Decoding weak signals.
Economic Realism + Cultural Intelligence.
Young Chinese aren't blocking anything. They're opting out.
Chinese students crush PISA 2025 while French high schools are on blockade. But their silence is not consent: it turns into millions of individual opt-outs (躺平, marriage, property) that are already reshaping Chinese consumption.
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The Trust Contract
On 22 September, Walmart handed Sam's Club China's purchasing to an American who has never worked in China. On Xiaohongshu, members replied: “finally”. Decoding a year of cracks, the 阿里帮, and what 10.7 million upper-middle-class households really buy with their 680-yuan card: a contract, not products.
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Chinese consumption does not exist
Shanghai -6.7% in August. Suzhou, 25 minutes away by high-speed train: +3%, the best performance in the country. Behind the aggregate figure that makes the headlines, an archipelago of cities with opposite consumers. A city-by-city decoding, with a comparison table of the 9 metropolises that together weigh as much as the retail of Germany, France and Italy combined.
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What I Saw in China’s 254th City
Fifteen beverage brands within one kilometer of a tier-5 city. A Didi driver who feeds his family on a Wuhan-level food budget and lives in a 140 m² apartment. While Beijing turns negative and Chongqing dethrones Shanghai, growth has changed address. A field report, and what Starbucks just admitted by ceding control of its China business
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The invisible subsidy: the case of a summer camp
Six days at Shanghai Jiao Tong for 6,580 yuan, full board: Yangshan port, the National Chip Centre, Baidu Robotaxi. Decoding state assets at marginal cost and the institutional access that money cannot buy. Five take-aways for foreign companies.
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The Chinese mall is not a shopping centre
One family, three generations, seven floors, not a single clothing purchase. Why China's state-owned malls generate growing cash flows while physical retail is dying elsewhere, and what this local public service changes for Western brands.
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Where is the Chinese team?
2026 World Cup: the sponsors, the KOLs and 400,000 Chinese fans will be in New York. The national team will not. What Chinese football reveals about 78 trillion yuan of local debt, the temporal misalignment of the Chinese model, and what Western companies need to read beyond the Five-Year Plan.
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China's social algorithm
20 billion for one man, 5,000 yuan for 320 million. One single mechanism. How Chinese precarity funds the technological sovereignty that will widen it, and why what China is building today is probably the clearest preview of the future of work worldwide.
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The frugal economy: the low end is rewriting the grammar of the Chinese market
Why “unknown” Chinese brands are setting a new standard of execution. AiYiFu, DUSTO and YiNeng together total €2.25bn and 23,000 stores, won across 1,341 counties while nobody was looking.
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Adidas China chose the human side
How an AI mistake became the best marketing move of 2026. 72 hours, +400% sales, 1.5 million views. Decoding three cultural levers (活人感, 去精英化, 去中心化) and what they reveal about the organisational decentralisation of global brands.
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While SoftBank funds France, China funds its chips
€75bn from SoftBank in Paris, €600bn of self-financing in Shanghai for the IPOs of China's chip champions (CXMT, YMTC). Decoding the Party's dilemma, Citi's diagnosis of a K-shaped economy, and what this changes (or does not change) for foreign brands in China.
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Medicine as a state project
How China is shifting Wegovy from Western slimming luxury to mass public health in just 24 months. Decoding a three-stage mechanism: cultural, political, industrial. When the State appoints itself project manager and pharma companies become its beneficiary contractors.
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The best-known Frenchman in China is neither Macron nor Mbappé
The Valentin Debise case. How integrating European expertise, cut off from its original ecosystem, is redefining Chinese industrial power: the shift from manufacturing to high-level co-design.
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漂亮饭 | Piaoliang Fan: What "Pretty Food" Reveals About Gen Z
Beyond the viral aesthetics, Piaoliang Fan serves as a decoder for the new strategic trade-offs made by the Chinese Gen Z. An analysis of horizontal validation mechanisms and emotional consumption redefining perceived value and retail profitability in China.
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信号 | China AI Signal - April 2026
Every month, MadameChina reads Chinese sources directly, WeChat, specialised tech platforms and state publications, and brings them to you in French, without an Anglo-Saxon filter.
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Note 2 | The Settlement Map: The Shift to the Hinterland
Why China's demographic centre of gravity is shifting to the West and Centre. Understanding the political trade-off between coastal saturation and the sanctuarisation of Sichuan.
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China is no longer conquering the world. It is settling in.
Why the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) marks the end of simple exporting and the beginning of full ecosystem integration. A vital strategic decoding for French companies.
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信号 | China AI Signal - March 2026
Every month, MadameChina reads Chinese sources directly, WeChat, specialised tech platforms and state publications, and brings them to you in French, without an Anglo-Saxon filter.
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Shein and Manus: Chinese in spite of themselves
Between attempts at “de-Sinicisation” for the IPO and Beijing's brutal calls to order. Why erasing one's identity of origin has become an impossible bet for tech giants.
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Chinese Button: How Adidas is redefining “Glocal”
Adidas's incredible resurrection in China and the unexpected outcome of “China for Global”.
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Chinese Equity (II): Investment Angles
The pivot to Hard Tech (Unitree) and the trade-off between Shanghai and Hong Kong. Why decoding the Party's industrial dogma is the only real strategic edge.
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Chinese Equity (I): The Illusion of a Single Bloc
Anatomy of the 3 exchanges (Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong). Why the current discount is a trap for beginners, and the reality of state control.
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Two AIs, Two Civilisations
The philosophical gap between Beijing and Silicon Valley. Why the Chinese algorithm is public infrastructure while the American one is a rent-generating product.
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The era of reverse JVs
Yesterday, we exported our patents. Today, we co-build with Chinese know-how. This note decodes two cultures of responsibility.
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Aldi in China: The Transformation
How a German discounter cracked the code of the Chinese market. From Hard Discount to Proximity Premium.
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The Decathlon Paradox
Selling China in 2026 is a valuation mistake. Analysis of a major strategic anomaly for the French leader.
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The return of Chinese tourists
Why the 2026 Chinese traveller is leaving logos behind to look for meaning in an authentic experience.
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Cotti Coffee in Paris
How this ultra-fast chain intends to transform the way we drink coffee and shake up Parisian habits.
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JD x Fnac-Darty: A Logistics Win-Win
Analysis of a possible strategic alliance between the Chinese giant and the French leader to redefine last-mile logistics.
View the Note →15th Five-Year Plan | The new script of Chinese power.
This series of notes analyses the 15th Plan as it is written, in its real trade-offs and priorities, from two crucial angles:
- Impact in France: Reshaping our markets and value chains by 2030.
- French companies in China: Identifying the sectors being pushed and those being constrained.