In recent years and since the pandemic led to the surge in live streaming, e-learning and other online activities, the demand for cloud computing and related services has increased significantly. Chinese companies led by frontrunners Huawei, Tencent and Alibaba are launching into all-out competition in the cloud services sector. In particular, Huawei Cloud experienced a surge in year-on-year earnings of 168%, despite US sanctions. Huawei Cloud is also aiming to clinch the top spot in the sector, erstwhile occupied by Alibaba Cloud. Caixin journalist Zhang Erchi takes a deep dive into the issue to get a sense of who's really leading the fight. In part one of the story, he focuses on Huawei.

Chinese economics professor Li Jingkui is pensive as he visits New York City for the first time. Rather than the romanticised versions of the city he had read about, the New York he encounters in Flushing, Queens is gritty and a whole other reality. But he reflects that as societies and cultures continue to evolve, fighting for dominance in a state of chaos, the side they show to the world will sometimes be different but always real.

Home to 7.5 million people, Hong Kong has the world's least affordable housing market. While the Hong Kong government has put many housing policies in place, and see the importance of solving the housing issue, why is it so hard for Hong Kong to make progress in this area? Caixin journalists Zhou Wenmin and Wang Duan report.

Caixin journalists Kang Jia and Han Wei note that balancing modern human activities with protection of wildlife is becoming increasingly challenging, especially in Xishuangbanna, which is known as a safe haven for wild Asian elephants. What are the authorities doing to improve the situation?

Amid worsening Covid-19 outbreaks in India and many Southeast Asia countries, ship operators are turning to China's massive workforce of 1.65 million crew members to fill the global shortage of crew members. Why are Chinese crew members in such high demand? Caixin journalists Jia Tianqiong and Yang Ge find out.

After a good laugh over falling for a phone app scam, Chinese economics professor Li Jingkui says seriously that the scammers’ tactics involved simple economics and he should have caught on to it sooner. But perhaps he was just being human and some knowledge of psychology would have been more helpful in this case?

As children cram for their studies, their parents are cramming along with them, believing that they should be good role models. Is all this hyper-learning normal or good? Chinese economics professor Li Jingkui will let others be the judge, but he says that economically speaking, this is a sign that social mobility is shrinking; everyone feels compelled to grasp the last inch of rope that will airlift them to a better life.

Zhang Wenhong, director of the infectious diseases department at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai, delivered a commencement speech in English at New York University Shanghai on 26 May. He observed that in China's fight against Covid-19, a consideration for others in the community helped people follow mask-wearing and social distancing protocol in the early stages. Writ large, a globalised problem can only be solved through human solidarity. The world, especially the young of the future, need to a find a way to work together.

Have you ever received a gift that you did not like? Economics professor Li Jingkui notes that when there is a mismatch between the gift and its recipient, the giver and receiver suffer a "deadweight loss". But still, many of us continue to exchange gifts. After much thought and research, Li found the answer for such persistent human behaviour in a Maori myth — you give a part of yourself along with your gift, which is something more valuable than the gift itself.