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📊 BIG STAT

Chinese consumers are eating more instant noodles, not for the reason you think // Over half of Chinese consumers increased their instant noodle intake over the past year, with more than 40% saying they eat them simply because they enjoy the taste, according to a 2025 iiMedia Research survey.

Market leader Master Kong reported revenue of 28.4 billion RMB in 2025— its first growth in three years — while group-level gross margin climbed from 33.1% to 34.8%, driven by premiumization and lower raw material costs. This suggests that instant noodles are replacing their “poor ghost” image with a conscious comfort-food choice.

🎭 CONSUMER CULTURE

AI-generated short dramas break into the mainstream // Two AI-made viral hits are signaling a new chapter for China’s short drama industry.

Huo Qubing, a historical war epic produced by a ~20-person team in 48 hours with just 3,000 RMB in computing costs, racked up hundreds of millions of views and sparked heated industry debate about AI’s disruptive potential in filmmaking. Meanwhile, Snow Mountain Fox Rescue, a slapstick AI short originally made to sell soy roasted duck, snowballed into a 5-billion-view phenomenon as government accounts, brands, and millions of users remixed it into an endless stream of parodies.

BOSS Zhipin launches dating app as recruitment growth slows // China’s leading recruitment platform BOSS Zhipin has entered the dating market with a rebranded app called “Kanzhun”, as its core business hits a ceiling.

Hit by the gloomy job market, its 2025 revenue growth halved to 12.4% compared to 2024, and paid enterprise clients are plateauing amid competition from Douyin and Kuaishou. The move leverages the company’s existing verification processes: users seeking matches can authenticate via social insurance records, corporate WeChat credentials, and work IDs, repurposing BOSS Zhipin’s identity-verification moat from hiring into matchmaking.

💄 FASHION & BEAUTY

Korea’s MUSINSA accelerates China expansion, backed by Anta // Korean fashion platform MUSINSA is aggressively pushing into China, planning to open 10 stores in 2026 and 100 by 2030. The company formed a joint venture with Anta Sports in April 2025, and its first international flagship opened in Shanghai last December. Often dubbed “Korea’s Uniqlo,” MUSINSA is now preparing for an IPO filing in H1 2026.

Shanghai Fashion Week AW2026 wraps up // The AW2026 edition of Shanghai Fashion Week ran from late March through early April under the theme “Level Up.”

The opening and closing shows were presented by domestic brands HPLY and EP YAYING respectively, while top Chinese independent labels including Feng Chen Wang (celebrating its 10th anniversary), Short Sentence, 8ON8, JACQUES WEI, COMME MOI, and SUSAN FANG headlined the runway. One of the season’s biggest highlights was Maison Margiela’s global debut of AW2026 in Shanghai.

🍽️ FOOD & BEVERAGE

Lay’s opens first-ever “potato restaurant” in Shanghai // Lay’s has launched its first “Potato Restaurant” at CALIX in Shanghai, transforming the venue with its signature lemon-yellow branding and a collaboration with fashion label 8ON8. The pop-up features creative East-meets-West potato dishes, including four Shanghai-exclusive potato gelatos, and a limited menu co-designed by former Michelin chef Francesco Bonvini.

🛍️ RETAIL

Meituan tests “fortune-telling meal box” feature // Meituan has quietly rolled out a new in-app feature called “Destiny Delivery Blind Box,” which uses a so-called “Yi Jing algorithm” to decide what users should eat. The tool claims to factor in a user’s birth chart, real-time location, weather, star alignment, and even phone battery level to generate a “fated meal of the day.” This service is currently available in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hangzhou.

Didi tests “drink-for-you” proxy service // Didi has introduced a new “proxy drinking” service targeting young professionals dreading work dinners and obligatory drinking culture in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

Users can hire stand-in drinkers rated by alcohol tolerance and social skills — standard proxies just drink, while premium ones deliver eloquent toasts and deflect rounds on your behalf. Shandong-native drinkers, famed for their capacity, cost an extra 100 yuan. An 888-yuan all-night unlimited package is also available.

🧠 TECH

RedNote to launch cross-border e-commerce platform “Redshop” in June // RedNote’s cross-border e-commerce platform Redshop is set to officially launch in June 2026, with an initial invite-only rollout targeting seed merchants in categories like intangible cultural heritage crafts and artisanal goods. The move marks a major step in RedNote’s ongoing push to close the loop between content and commerce, and in joining the ‘going abroad’ wave after its 2025 #tiktokrefugee fame.

Foxconn begins trial production of foldable iPhone // Foxconn has started trial production of Apple’s first foldable iPhone, with a launch expected alongside the iPhone 18 Pro series in September.

The device is expected to feature a book-style fold design with a ~7.7-inch inner screen and ~5.3-inch outer screen, and is being called the most significant iPhone redesign since the iPhone X in 2017. Pricing for the China market is estimated to start at 14,000-15,000 RMB, with top configurations potentially exceeding 20,000 RMB, making it Apple’s most expensive phone ever.

🏃‍♂️ SPORTS

Patagonia’s China-only “earth tax” on returns sparks backlash // Patagonia’s Tmall store began charging a refundable “Earth Usage Fee” since April — 15 RMB for the first item, plus 5 RMB per additional item — which is kept and donated to the SEE Foundation’s “1% for the Planet” program if the customer returns any items, refunded in full if they don’t. The stated rationale? China’s e-commerce return rates for womenswear run as high as 65–80% post-COVID, far above Western averages, and generate significant carbon emissions.

However, the move triggered a fierce backlash, with consumers arguing that the brand’s global “1% for the Planet” pledge donates from its own revenue, while this policy makes shoppers foot the bill for the brand’s environmental image.

ZXMOTO sells out after historic WSBK win // Chongqing-based motorcycle maker ZXMOTO (Zhang Xue Motor) is experiencing a demand surge after its 820RR-RS became the first Chinese motorbike to win at the World Superbike Championship in Portugal in late March, breaking decades of European and Japanese dominance. The 2026 820RR and 500RR models racked up nearly 10,000 pre-orders within 10 days of launch — close to half of the brand’s entire 2025 sales volume.

🌍 TRAVEL & TOURISM

RedNote builds an immersive “Story City” at Mount Emei // RedNote held its second REDGALA event on March 27–28 at Mount Emei in Sichuan, constructing an immersive “Story City” made up of beloved film and TV IPs — visitors could pose with Judy from Zootopia 2, wander through the ghost market from Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, or even rewrite unsatisfying endings from classic dramas like Chinese Paladin 3.

The event also featured RedNote’s first-ever entertainment awards ceremony, putting works at center stage, with winners determined by user discussion and fan-created content rather than ratings or box office numbers.

War jitters and oil prices hit China’s May Day travel // The U.S.–Iran conflict has disrupted far more than Middle Eastern itineraries — with Gulf hub airlines intermittently grounded, a key China-to-Europe transit artery is severed, jet fuel has spiked 12% in weeks, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) projects global airfares will rise up by 9% as a result. Even destinations far from the fighting are seeing mass cancellations, as consumers opt to stay home rather than navigate uncertainty.

🐾 PET

Tencent Video launches “Pet TV” channel // Tencent Video has begun trialling a “Pet TV” channel designed for pets.

Sourced from overseas channels like DOGTV, the content is tailored to cats’ and dogs’ distinct visual and auditory perception: the dog section focuses on calming content with breed-specific playlists, while the cat section features dynamic tracking and prey-chasing visuals to stimulate hunting instincts. Although China still lacks regulations to protect companion animals, this marks a notable step towards a more inclusive pet economy.

🗓️ UPCOMING – PICK & CHOOSE YOUR CHINA ITINERARY IN APR 2026

• Apr 15-17 2026CHINASHOP, Hangzhou

• Apr 23-27 The 139th Canton Fair International Pavilion, Guangzhou

• Apr 27-29 Food & Beverage Innovation Forum, Hangzhou

Editor: .

They have both become the sources of entertainment for Chinese consumers with shrinking wallets in 2026.

About two weeks ago, Xi’an hosted a Caijiamo competition (as opposed to Roujiamo with meat, it’s vegetables), where contestants were given a Shaanxi-style crispy flatbread and were as…

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Yesterday was the annual March 15 Consumer Rights Gala. Again, as in the last few years, the issues exposed stop being hard-hit…

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However, since the rise of ‘guochao’/New Chinese Style movement, domestic brands have increasingly taken over the centerstage in consumer aspirations, which make them role models for Western brands in connecting…

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The occasion of Spring Festival gala — which also includes local versions at provincial TV stations — doesn’t attract much good will these days, but it remains a premium opportunity for celebrities and brands to make an appearence. Above all, of course, the one hosted by China Media Group (CMG) trumps all.

Over the last week, you could see waves of celebrities posting their behind-the-scenes content of being on such galas on social media. They may just be happy and honored to be invited, of course.

However, in the age of cancel culture, in which the driving force is the government rather the market in China, it also sends signals to their potential employers: LOOK! I have the stamp of approval from the government; it’s safe to hire me.

Also on the stage were made-in-China humanoid robots. Unitree, Noetix Robotics, Galbot, and Magic Lab each paid RMB 100 million to be on stage ahead of the industry’s IPO craze, according to financial publication Caijing.

So, what’s the role of CMG Spring Festival gala here? A billboard, a business broker, an AI bubble enabler? For now, it seems to be all of the above.

The brands/companies we mentioned in this issue are: Kingsoft Shiyou, Zegna Group, Pop Mart, Mingming Henmang, Eastroc Beverage, Pangdonglai, Walmart, RedNote, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, ByteDance, Seedance 2.0, BOSS Zhipin, Anta, Alo Yoga, Mixue.

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My work is very much focused on China — I do financial and business research, as well as trend analysis of the Chinese market. Additionally, I run a nonprofit called that organizes and amplifies China events in the UK with a co-founder and volunteers. So, th…

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The rise of dialect influencers is a clear expression of China’s inward-looking cultural momentum that intensified during a…

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The day I took the test, I was in a northern Chinese city for a friend’s wedding and had been paranoid about a late period for days. I felt like I could see signs everywhere — from watching Leah Dou as a pregnant teenager in The Eleventh Chapter, to meeting Songzi Niangniang, the fertility goddess, once I entered a temple in Pingyao. I knew I had to do something to ease my rattled mind.

I got back to the hotel late at night and decided to order a pregnancy test from Meituan, which arrived in discreet packaging. I was somehow relieved when the Clearblue test showed a positive sign, and was soon awash by a wave of heaviness: I’m a mom now?

That continued to sit heavily on my brain, and became something I had to remind myself every morning for the week after as I caressed my belly.

I thought about a conversation I had recently with my mom about her abortion, specifically, about her having to cease her pregnancy after having me in early 1990s.

Under the One-Child Policy, which officially encouraged people to have one child, local party officials were eager to enforce much stricter guidelines with it being a core part of their KPI*. In my city in Jiangsu province, that meant all the relatives were mobilized to talk sense into them and my parents would be let go from their jobs. My mom, a teacher then, eventually went to a maternal and child health hospital to take some pills.

But her health wasn’t protected. Her post-abortion bleeding became non-stop after being sent home. She passed out after losing several basins’ worth of blood, and was sent back to the hospital. When she was lying in the hospital bed, she felt her soul leave her body, and she told me that she could see my grandma holding me from above.

Yet when I told her about my pregnancy, she smiled, and said I should keep it.

1, 2, 3: policy levers around fertility

Beijing scraped the One-Child Policy in 2015 after a significant drop in birth rate from 13.83 to 11.99 per thousand. And the forthcoming Two-Child Policy brought a short-term boost before losing momentum to a long-winded and sure decline.

While being on the downward path, Beijing further relaxed the rules to Three-Child Policy in 2021, with a lukewarm reaction apart from a non-correlated bump from the Year of Dragon in 2024, an auspicious year to have babies.

Registered births in 2025 dropped to 7.92 million, down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024, and the lowest since records began in 1949, the National Bureau of Statistics reported in January.

Last July, Beijing announced the very first 3,600 yuan/year birth subsidies, payments that will be available to all families with children under the age of 3 who are born or legally adopted. Parents can apply for it through a mini-program as of late August, 2025, or apply offline at the township government or subdistrict office.

It’s too early to call this subsidy a failure, after all, policy is just one variable of people’s family planning decisions.

In a webinar I organized about this specific issue then, I listed four main driving factors behind childbirth:

• Individual factor

• Economic factor

• Social/Cultural factor

• Political factor

When I look at the list again today, and the chart I put into my Keynote from a 2025 Peking University paper* below, it feels personal — I’m excluded in the social category as a single woman.

The case around being single and female

In either domestic or Western media, middle class Chinese women are often portrayed as this fussy, overeducated, high-demand group who think they are too good for their male counterparts.

Women around the world complain about dating. In reality, my experience of living and dating in Shanghai for eight years altogether had been much more tougher than my years in London and New York City. China’s dichotomy of a patriarchal social structure and rising female consciousness presents a unique challenge, which results in a widely reported imbalance of undateable rural men and urban women, and those in between.

Educated women in big cities lack their equals, which isn’t just about finance and CVs, but about values. They struggle to fit themselves into the outdated patriarchal expectations of being domestic, docile and unambitious, this is often the case when they meet the wrong person.

Most often, they won’t even know where to meet that person. In Shanghai, the city that I’m most familiar with — its lifestyle attracts women from all over China, and the city center is full of FMCG, marketing, and advertising jobs that conventionally skew towards women, whereas suburban areas like Fengxian and Zhangjiang have a much larger male population, being Shanghai’s EV and tech hubs.

Sister Jing, a professional matchmaker with 500,000 followers across different platforms, told podcast The Ugly Truth last month that the perceived eligible male to female ratio in China’s first-tier cities is 1:7. I can testify to the environment that courages 雌竞 (female intrasexual competition), and although the “leftover women” narrative has been scrapped in the media in recent years, it still stands true that in China, women’s desirability is closely linked to age.

A widely cited statistics show that the number of unmarried women aged 30 and above has surpassed 42 million, and in first-tier cities, more than 35% of women aged 30–39 are unmarried. Some of these women, like me, also want to freeze their eggs; I know of people who have done it in the U.S., Malaysia, Thailand, Greece, costing from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan.

According to iResearch, China’s assisted reproductive technology (ART) market is expected to grow to 48.4 billion yuan in 2026. The market mainly serves infertile, married couples. Data released by the National Health Commission and the China Population Association show that in 2021, the penetration rate of assisted reproduction in China was 8.2%, which was relatively low comparing to over 30% in the U.S. The room for growth is substantial.

The fertility funnel

I already made up my mind before the test — the person involved and I had already broke up, I knew he wouldn’t be a reliable father, and my foreseeable future was full of changes — this was not the right time.

In China, the phrase 去父留子 (remove the father and keep the child) has started to be twirled around in conversations as rising female independence becomes a symbol of power and control. However, when I put things into perspective — it’s not that easy to consciously eliminate the presence of a father from the child before they are born, nor is it easy to decide whether I’m financially and emotionally capable of becoming a single mom.

In an online response about this question, Fudan University associate professor Shen Yifei expressed her opposition to the rhetoric, as it diminishes the separate societal roles within a family: one doesn’t need to have a father, but a child must grow up with socialized child-rearing (training children to adopt societal norms) and physiological child-rearing (focuses on a child's neurobiological regulation), which can hardly be done by one person.

For women living in largest cities Beijing and Shanghai, like I was before moving to London in the summer of 2024, we lose 580 thousand yuan and six to seven years of working life expectancy to bearing and rearing one child, according to the 2020 paper* “How Large is the Motherhood Penalty in Urban China?” by Liu Jinju, an associate professor at the School of Public Administration at Beijing City University.

I suppose those were the individual and economic factors I’ve considered. In terms of social/cultural factors and political ones — they are having less effect on me after I left China.

On the surface, Beijing forbids workplace discrimination against women; in reality, it is common for women to get routinely questions during job interviews about their family planning as maternity leave is usually seen as a company’s loss. At around 30, the supposed age where they consider settling down, they also have to face a barrier known as “the curse of 35.”

Another change in culture, which may be owing to the rise of female-centric apps such as Rednote, is that more young women step forward to share the physical and psychological harms of giving birth.

Political reasons play a big part in my decision to leave. That includes my personal safety as an ex-journalist and a researcher, with fear triggered by tangential events and incidents involving acquaintances; that also includes the negligence Beijing shows to women’s safety issues (e.g. everyday voyeurism, human trafficking of adult women, etc.).

In the weeks after the now disbanded Telegram group MaskPark was brought to light, which encouraged Chinese men to share unsolicited photos of women around them. I started seeing such comments online toward the central government:

“You can choose not to investigate — and we can choose not to give birth. （你们可以不查 我们也可以不生。）”

“If [you] don’t address this, just wait for the birth rate to drop to 0%. （再不处理就等着生育率降为0%吧。）”

It would be hugely gratifying to think that the commentators manifested this year’s record-low birth rate, but I don’t think politics yields that much effect in most others’ family planning decisions. I know very well that being able to do egg freezing abroad, and having options to leave are a privilege.

In theory, I’ve been decisive in severing ties with a patriarchal home nation and the man who impregnated me; in reality, it’s much harder.

Where is China’s birthrate going?

After hearing about my story with the man, my mom softened and agreed that I should get an abortion. But for her, now the question is whether to do it in China or back in London?

She tirelessly looked things up online and found me a good deal from United Family Healthcare, that cost over 20,000 yuan and included 2 nights at the branch in Shanghai.

Here are the general abortion options depending on the age of the fetuses: medical abortion is for fetus under 10 weeks; surgical abortion is for those above. But there are also other factors at play, like pain level and certainty of getting it done in one go.

I ruled out the option to do it in China, not because of the money, but because the system is discriminatory towards unmarried women — by default, unmarried women are required sign waivers before they undergo gynecological exams because we are not expected to have sex before marriage. I’ve been given enough funny looks whenever I signed a waiver, the last thing I wanted to do now is receive secondary trauma at such a vulnerable state as a pregnant single woman.

I know that shouldn’t be a worry at private hospitals like United Family Healthcare, but isn’t it unfair, that if one requires decency, they must be able to afford a price out of reach for so many.

I did it through NHS after I went back to London. The female doctor, who told me she has two daughters, was very caring and empathetic. I felt good about my decision.

The older I get, the more I see the necessity of an environment that champions equality, which is more than lip service and DEI slogans. Yes, we are not having our feet bound, we can go to school and we can work, but it doesn’t mean we should be complacent now.

Being pregnant as a single woman in her 30s gave me a window to see my options, and the lack thereof:

• I would love not to have to sign a waiver to be able to do my gynecological exam, and I do not want to encounter any funny looks or comments while doing that;

• I would love to have a safe abortion procedure done in a caring environment;

• I would love to be able to do egg freezing in China, just as how single men are able to freeze their semen. [the National Health Commission said in 2000 that it carried too many health risks for women; Xu Zaozao, the face of the fight over egg-freezing rights, lost her final appeal in 2024]

I sometimes wonder whether the current state reflects the government’s attitude towards feminism, which is framed as a subversion of state power and also heavily stigmatized in civil society as “Women's Fist-ism” — even talking about female rights seem politically incorrect.

So, although Chinese women truly hold the “half the sky” role in economic and social development, as President Xi Jinping recognized at the opening ceremony of the Global Women’s Summit, from working to internet entrepreneurship to winning Olympic medals, it seems that asking for rights outside the commercial field would be overstepping. This is the contradictory stance that Beijing is in.

I don’t have an answer to the question I’m posing at the start, which is, how much would single women help solve the birthrate problem, and how big of a business would it be if single women are allowed to freeze their eggs in China?

To quote a male friend: Male violence is so overwhelming and all-encompassing, that even well-intentioned men end up damaging women’s bodies in decisions that appear utterly irrelevant to the men themselves.

Before the fertility question is considered from a woman’s perspective, as the government tends to forget that it is a women’s decision, I don’t think China’s birthrate will ever go up. 🔚

References:

• Yu, Z. (2023). Municipal and county investment: The logic of economic development and investment in lower-tier regions (市县投资：下沉区域经济发展与投资逻辑). Shanghai Far East Publishing House.

• Liu, J. (2020). How large is the motherhood penalty in urban China? Population Research (人口研究), 44(2): 33-43.

• Shi, Z., et al. (2024). The incentive effect and the safety-net effect of birth subsidy policies: Evidence from field experiments on birth subsidies. Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.

• Li, J, et. al. (2025) Re-examining China’s Persistently Low Fertility Rate from the Perspective of Dynamic Structural Differences. Peking University.

Happy 2026, or the end of the Year of the Snake. I just returned from a 3-week trip to China, where I went to many places for the first time — Lijiang’s Yulong village (for a wedding), Guiyang, Taiyuan (for a wedding) and the nearby Pingyao County.

I can’t say I’ve come to know them that thoroughly from a short stay, but visiting has definit…

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About the author: Wanqing Chen is a multimedia journalist and writer focusing on gen…

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For the next two weeks, we are going to publish a media recipe guide and a reported piece by about how Chinese consumers’ sense of the economy diverse from or align with China’s financial indicators.

I’m flying from London to Lijiang to host a wedding this week (which haven’t prepared for). However, I’m mentally preparing for a challeng…

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From the business perspective, HK’s gradual integration with mainland China has been largely positive, which has been exempl…

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Hope you are having a productive month before the holidays!

I was in Hong Kong last week for a short trip — I went on a panel with Bernstein, did a sharing with Technological and Higher Education Institute, caught up with some of you, with ’s , at the Foreign Correspondents Club (special shoutout to Allen Lee who flew in from Tokyo) and cras…

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Welcome back to “China color,” a column that records Chinese people’s unfiltered voices behind macro-level analysis and numbers, as well as field trips by our contributors. You can read all the previous issues here.

The burst of the housing bubble is a common culprit behind underwhelming consumer sentiment, but what does that mean in practice?

Chinese ho…

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About the author: Rachel Ruonan Zheng is freelance writer and former editor at Vice China. Her Substack explores the intimate interse…

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In particular, how luxury marketing campaigns and RedNote posts, especially those urging female consumers to prioritize their needs and be the trailblazers of their fields, are evoking a collecti…

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And as if that’s not early enough, the seniors who are mostly in their 70s and 80s, and my 95-year-old grandma, would queue up to 30 mins before it starts serving.

“How long have you been doing this?” I asked as w…

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But soon, you realize you are visiting a 10,000m² graveyard of China’s consumpti…

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The conversations about the controversy have not died down, because a social event of a business nature like this presents a rare opportunity for the public to voice their opini…

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The exact thing happened last We…

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