BizChina

Apple’s carrier partner in China, China Unicom, was hoping its deal to carry the iPhone would help it lure customers away from rival China Mobile, but many China Mobile users resisted the switch, choosing instead to modify their iPhones to work with their existing accounts. Now, the Beijing unit of China Mobile has set up a website to make it even easier.

In addition to providing instructions for how to activate an iPhone 4 with China Mobile service (changing settings to enable location-based services, for example), the website says ten China Mobile outlets around Beijing will provide a special service to help users cut their SIM cards to fit the iPhone 4’s smaller microSIM card slot.

The website offers a helpline for users with technical questions and says China Mobile Group Beijing Co. “is now working hard to make the microSIM card, and it will soon be available in our outlets.”

China Unicom has launched a long-expected application store for users to download apps like games and Internet browsers to their mobile devices, making it the latest mobile carrier looking to reproduce the success of Apple’s App Store.

Mobile carriers, especially, are building their own takes on the App Store as they look for sources of revenue besides providing simple data connections, a business where tough competition drives down margins. Many carriers want to control their own download stores in addition to any offered by the makers of their customers’ handsets.

ZTE, a Chinese maker of telecommunications equipment and mobile phones, said this week it helped build the application service – called the WoStore – and that it will support “all open smartphone platforms” except the iPhone, as well as devices like tablets.

A Catholic priest’s willingness to speak his mind about Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong business leader who is one of the city’s biggest real-estate developers, has prompted meetings with a representative of Mr. Li and an unusual statement of “regret” from the church — though not from the priest.

It all started on Oct. 31, when Reverend Thomas Law of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong compared Li Ka-shing to the devil in a discussion criticizing property practices. After a Halloween party, the Rev. Law said that ghosts couldn’t compare to greedy property developers and mentioned Mr. Li as the “true devil that kills people.”

Starbucks Corp. signed a deal with the Chinese provincial government of Yunnan to set up its first-ever coffee-bean farm in the world to cater to a rapidly growing population of coffee drinkers in China amid a global battle for quality coffee beans.

In the southwest province steeped in thousands of years of tea production, the Seattle-based coffee chain is hiring and training local coffee growers. The hope is that Chinese-grown arabica beans, a bitter-earthy variety, will fill the cups of a culture that is acquiring a growing taste for coffee.