BY LAURIE BURKITT BEIJING—Fresh off what promises to be the biggest-ever purchase of a U.S. company by a Chinese buyer, property and entertainment tycoon Wang Jianlin plans to make similarly ambitious moves in global industries ranging from film to retail to hotels. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Wang said his Dalian Wanda Group Corp. hopes to invest in the luxury hotel business as well as in film production. He also said he hopes Wanda will become the world's largest retailer by space by 2015, reaching 25 million square meters (269 million square feet) from its current nine million. By ...BY LAURIE BURKITT BEIJING—Fresh off what promises to be the biggest-ever purchase of a U.S. company by a Chinese buyer, property and ... Continue reading →
A Russian cellist with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra whose impolite treatment of a Chinese train passenger drew widespread online condemnation has been dismissed. Sina Weibo Oleg Vedernikov, a principal in the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, pictured in a screenshot from his apology video posted to the orchestra’s official feed on Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo. The orchestra disclosed the move to dismiss Oleg Vedernikov on its website in a statement dated Monday. His behavior “has seriously damaged the reputation of the orchestra,” it said in the statement. “In accordance with the orchestra’s regulations of his employment contract, the decision has been made to remove him.” Tan Lihua, head of the orchestra said in the statement that members “should act in a civilized manner, maintain good manners ... Continue reading →
Where are the world's busiest airline routes? JEJU, on the South Korean island of the same name, is not one of the country's 20 biggest cities. Yet the island's allure as a domestic tourist destination resulted in 9.9m passengers flying between Seoul and Jeju (in either direction) in 2011. This makes it the busiest airline route in the world, according to Amadeus, a company that provides technology to the travel industry. It measures the cities where passengers start and finish their journeys, so while the busiest actual flight corridor in America is New York-Chicago, it only counts as the third-busiest American route because many of the passengers are connecting to other destinations. It comes just behind New York-Fort Lauderdale (3.1m) and New York-Los Angeles (3m). ... Continue reading →