https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/rss/525121/feed Michael Han is assistant president and Shanghai general manager at Yuepu Technology Group. A Fudan finance EMBA mentor and financial columnist, he previously oversaw landmark project expansions at Sun Hung Kai Properties and directed the operations of 230-plus shopping centres at Wanda Group, establishing profound expertise spanning asset management, capital markets and policy application. en https://assets-v2.i-scmp.com/production/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg Michael Han Michael Han For iPhone users in China, the calendar has long presented a small but recurring problem. On a Sunday designated as a make-up workday, an alarm might remain silent. On a regular Friday converted into a day off, it might ring anyway. Nearly 17 years after entering the Chinese market, Apple quietly updated its operating system in September to automatically recognise China’s official schedule of adjusted holidays and workdays. The fix is modest, but it points to a larger question: what happens when... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3370840/chinas-golden-week-holidays-come-cost https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3370840/chinas-golden-week-holidays-come-cost Sun, 18 Oct 2026 01:30:06 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han For decades, China’s property sector was defined by spectacular scale: farmland transformed into suburbs, skylines rising across regional hubs and, more recently, the prominent unravelling of heavily indebted developers. Yet beneath those dramatic changes, a far quieter and more consequential transformation is taking shape. Official figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics in September reveal that secondary market home transactions have surpassed new residential builds in volume.... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3369213/why-protecting-home-values-beijings-new-priority https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3369213/why-protecting-home-values-beijings-new-priority Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:30:07 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han Financial markets are notoriously prone to mistaking a fundamental institutional shift for a temporary liquidity crisis. The futurist Roy Amara is often credited with the observation that people tend to overestimate the short-term effect of a transformation while underestimating its long-term impact. China’s real-estate sector is furnishing a textbook case of an analogous dynamic. On August 28, Chinese housing authorities and financial regulators announced a package to overhaul the commercial... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3366815/beijing-can-rewrite-chinas-property-rules-it-cant-undo-damage https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3366815/beijing-can-rewrite-chinas-property-rules-it-cant-undo-damage Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:30:05 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han Every summer, China’s gaokao, the national higher education entrance examination, provides an unusually revealing snapshot of household expectations. The critical metrics are not average scores or admission volumes. They are the choices families make about how their children will spend four years of their lives. The 2026 examination attracted 12.9 million registered candidates. This is a decline from 13.35 million in 2025 and 13.42 million in 2024. Demographics explain much of this contraction.... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3364311/chinas-falling-gaokao-numbers-offer-revealing-snapshot https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3364311/chinas-falling-gaokao-numbers-offer-revealing-snapshot Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:30:06 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han Capital seeks sanctuary. In China’s property sector, however, that quest for safety had inadvertently erected a cage. The recent government takeover of Wuhan-based private lender Zhongbang Bank, expected to see a dilution of its private capital amid serious credit risks, is a calculated regulatory action. It echoes a larger and darker precedent. A few years ago, another commercial lender, Shengjing Bank, became caught up in the Evergrande debt crisis. There was speculation property developer... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3360683/why-china-must-end-lucrative-marriage-between-property-and-banks https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3360683/why-china-must-end-lucrative-marriage-between-property-and-banks Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:30:05 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han The National Audit Office has accused Bank of China of dodging taxes. In its annual report, the audit office revealed that the state-owned commercial bank had used two of its subsidiaries to repackage 11 private equity funds as public investment vehicles, exploiting a regulatory tax exemption to evade 2.37 billion yuan (US$348.8 million) in taxes. This is not an isolated case. It sits at the top of a much wider pattern. Look to the other end of the state enterprise hierarchy and you find... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3358757/china-tightens-fiscal-net-it-must-strike-fine-balance https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3358757/china-tightens-fiscal-net-it-must-strike-fine-balance Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:30:10 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han When it comes to Chinese policy, what section of the work report it ends up in can say more than the policy itself. At the National People’s Congress, the most significant signal was not headline-grabbing stimulus but a quiet re-categorisation. Property policies have yet again been relegated to the risk prevention section in the government work report. This shift confirms that Beijing has fundamentally reappraised the sector. For global investors, the absence of a property stimulus bazooka was a... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3347753/chinas-property-pivot-growth-engine-protected-household-asset https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3347753/chinas-property-pivot-growth-engine-protected-household-asset Sun, 29 Mar 2026 01:30:09 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han For five years, China’s real estate sector has been defined by a punishing narrative of default and contraction. This era of discipline reached a pivotal threshold when China Vanke, the industry’s bellwether, recorded an 82 billion yuan (US$11.8 billion) loss. Crucially, this disclosure arrived only a few days after a strategic injection from its largest shareholder, Shenzhen Metro Group. The timing of the 2.36 billion yuan lifeline was a deliberate signal. By restoring ties right before the... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3342182/chinas-real-estate-rethink-can-help-end-developers-debt-addiction https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3342182/chinas-real-estate-rethink-can-help-end-developers-debt-addiction Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:30:39 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han For years, Beijing attempted to trade flats for microchips, a bold effort to rewire the economy. But 2025 showed that a hi-tech superstructure cannot be built on the crumbling foundation of a middle-class balance sheet. Now, in the opening 2026 issue of Qiushi, the Communist Party’s most influential journal, a new signal has emerged, indicating that the leadership is prepared to halt the decline. A key commentary in the journal presents a notable analytical shift. It reaffirms real estate as a... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3339640/china-set-double-down-property-market-stability https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3339640/china-set-double-down-property-market-stability Wed, 14 Jan 2026 08:30:15 +0000 Michael Han Michael Han For years, China Vanke was the property industry’s model pupil: prudent, reliable and seemingly immune to the reckless borrowing that felled its peers. That reputation evaporated in a matter of weeks. On the night of November 26, Vanke announced that it would convene a bondholder meeting to discuss maturity extensions. This move was immediately interpreted by the market as a sign of potential default risk, sparking panic among investors. After four and a half years of falling stock prices, Vanke... https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3336774/chinas-property-market-isnt-so-much-collapsing-being-reconfigured https://www-scmp-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/opinion/china-opinion/article/3336774/chinas-property-market-isnt-so-much-collapsing-being-reconfigured Sat, 20 Dec 2025 21:30:08 +0000