David Dayton of Silk Road International has a fascinating, though disquieting post, entitled, “Another Trip to the Healthy Department.” Dayton’s father was a doctor and Dayton tells us (in vivid detail) why he thinks it better never ever ever to go to a hospital in China, which hospitals he describes (based on a far amount… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: November 2008
David Dollar’s Blog. I Almost Love It.
Posted in China BusinessThere are four kinds of people: 1. Those who truly love the Financial Times and the Economist Magazine. 2. Those who claim to love the Financial Times and the Economist Magazine, but only because they want to be viewed a certain way. 3. Those who read the Financial Times and the Economist because they know… Continue Reading
China’s Economy Will Be Hurting. Unless It Isn’t.
Posted in Recommended ReadingElliot Ng over at CnReviews just came out with a very thoughtful post analyzing China’s economy. The post is entitled, “Global financial crisis will hurt China much more than the US,” and it says China’s economy is based on a three legged stool, two of which are weak. The three legs are “export-led growth,” “real… Continue Reading
China Losing Manufacturing Luster. I Buy That.
Posted in China BusinessI am always saying that my law firm’s clients (virtually all of whom are SMEs doing business internationally) are not leaving China because of its new Labor Contract Law, not leaving China because of its increased costs, and not leaving China because Vietnam is better. In fact, I virtually never hear about those things in… Continue Reading
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About China’s Economy
Posted in China BusinessA good friend of mine who is an executive at a large American Bank that owns a good-sized chunk of a large China bank, sent me this report on China’s economy from the World Bank. He said that “his” bankers think very highly of this report, as do I. Its highlights, as set forth on… Continue Reading
How To Treat Your China Employees. I Dunno.
Posted in China BusinessInteresting article by James Hudson over at China Success Stories. Article is entitled, “Want Committed Employees? Learn to Trust Them.” Its thesis is that if you want your Chinese employee to work hard for the company, like the company, and do what he or she can for the company, you, as the company, must show… Continue Reading
China’s Bar Exam. It’s Getting Better All The Time.
Posted in Legal NewsIn his post, “The Bar is Passing People By,” A Modern Lei Feng sets out the following pass rates for China’s bar exam: 2002 – 8%， 2003 – 11% 2004 – 11% 2005 – 14% 2006 – 15% 2007 – 22% He goes on to posit that the percentages for this year’s recently completed bar… Continue Reading
China Agricultural Opportunities. Shandong Province As The Place To Be.
Posted in China BusinessI knew it. I knew China’s new land reform laws making leasing of farmland easier and potentially more profitable would lead to opportunities relating to agriculture. But it took David Wolf over at the always interesting (you HAVE to check out the string of comments on this post!!!??!) Silicon Hutong and his post, “Why Land… Continue Reading
China In Pictures. MUST SEE.
Posted in Recommended ReadingGoogle just came out with millions of photographs from the archives of Life Magazine and, as anyone who has seen Life Magazine would know, they are riveting (h/t Shanghaiist), I have been checking out photos of old Shanghai and Beijing (a/k/a Peking). I am, however, a bit disappointed at how my searches of Qingdao, Dalian,… Continue Reading
China: Why PR And The Government Matter.
Posted in China BusinessIn its post “More Sympathy for Microsoft,” China Hearsay, very starkly does an excellent job highlighting why businesses should not/cannot ignore public relations and the Chinese government when making their key decisions. The post is on how Microsoft is getting so much heat from its decision to momentarily black out computer screens of those using… Continue Reading
China As United States Or 350 Albanias?
Posted in Recommended ReadingFascinating post over at China Economics Blog, entitled, “The geographic similarities between China and the US.” The post is on a recent Financial Times (FT) article, entitled, “How China can be more than 350 Albanias,” that starts out noting all kinds of similarities between China and the US, but concludes by pointing out that China’s… Continue Reading
China: Find Me That Factory! Part II
Posted in China BusinessA few days ago, in a post entitled, “China: Find Me That Factory,” I wrote of how not a single client of my firm has been impacted by factory closures in China and I wondered what sort of factories it is that are closing: But, and I know this is going to sound strange, I… Continue Reading
How To Go To China For Innovation
Posted in China BusinessBusiness Week has an interesting article touting innovation in China and the other BRICs (Brazil, Russia, and India). (h/t to China Challenges) The article is entitled, “China and India: New Innovation and Talent Forces” and it is subtitled, “China and India are catching up quickly with Western nations in providing homegrown talent as well as… Continue Reading
Where China’s Universities Rank
Posted in China BusinessUS News & World Report just came out with its rankings of the best universities in the World (h/t to Above the Law, which had my firm being acquired by Baker & McKenzie?) US News’ rankings of US colleges and universities are hugely influential in terms of where people apply to college. Many in the… Continue Reading
China Factories. Do You, You, Feel Like I Do? Part II
Posted in China BusinessThere ought to be a law against quoting Peter Frampton twice in one week. The other day, I did a post on how to know, in a blink, whether the factory with whom you are contemplating a business relationship is a good one. We received some comments with such excellent additional gut-check type indicators, I… Continue Reading
China’s Internet. A How-To For SMEs
Posted in Recommended ReadingThere is a strange dearth of materials out there for foreign companies seeking the nuts and bolts of how to get into selling their products online in and into China. I was recently alerted to an paper written on this very subject by Lisa Conklin, for her MBA degree at Fudan University. I enjoyed the… Continue Reading
China Factories. Do You, You, Feel Like I Do?
Posted in China BusinessI am always touting Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink. Reduced to two sentences, its thesis is that we humans overly worship logic to the detriment of our gut instincts, which are actually based on our lifetime of experience. In other words, your initial feeling about something is far more accurate than you think. Quality Wars has… Continue Reading
China: Find Me That Factory!
Posted in China BusinessThere is an old joke about a United Nations family planning conference. A leader up front, trying to scare people about overpopulation, exclaims how there is a woman giving birth somewhere in the world every 3 seconds. A jokester at the back of the room stands up and says, “find me that woman!” I thought… Continue Reading
Why Your Chances Of Not Getting Your First China Order Are So High.
Posted in China BusinessJust about every week, my firm gets contacted by a US company that ordered product from China and never got anything or got something multiple levels of magnitude less than what they ordered. Much of the time, this is a first order from China. The US company is usually asking us what they can do… Continue Reading
One Out of 1.3 Billion Loses It And Newsweek Proclaims China As “Most Stressful” Place On Earth.
Posted in China Business“Santa Clara” is among my Google alerts because my eldest daughter studies engineering at the University there. Friday, it was filled with stories of an engineer (apparently Chinese-American) who, after being laid off from his high tech start-up, killed three people at the company where he once worked. The story bothered me, but it did… Continue Reading
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Project
Posted in Recommended ReadingThe Green Leap Forward recently did a comprehensive overview of the Singapore-China eco-city going up on a massive scale just outside Tianjin. If you have any interest in eco-development, you should check it this post, entitled, “Creating A Better Life: A Closer Look at the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Project.”
Promising China Blog: The China Observer.
Posted in Recommended ReadingThe China Observer blog has been up for about two months now and I have already become a regular reader. The blog is written by Joel Backaler, who describes himself as follows: Joel Backaler (周乐达) first traveled to Beijing in 2001 and has since returned to the capital city where he works as the only… Continue Reading
China: I Don’t Want No Cheap Labor.
Posted in China BusinessYears ago, I wrote about how I ended up on the same Asiana Airlines Qingdao-Seoul-Seattle flight as a long-time client and friend of mine whose company, among other things, had been hugely successful in China in an industry where just about every other foreign company had failed. The long flights gave us an opportunity to… Continue Reading
China’s Soft Power. Use It Properly Or Lose It.
Posted in Recommended ReadingVery thoughtful piece on The Hypermodern on how China cannot take its position and status in the world for granted. The post is entitled, “The Loss of Soft Power,” and it is well worth a read.
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