Kudos to my basketball-challenged friend over at the always excellent (and often retrograde) What About Paris Blog for alerting me to the China in Africa: The Real Story blog. The China in Africa blog is written by Deborah Brautigam, who describes herself as follows: I’m a professor in American University’s International Development Program in the… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: December 2011
China And Hong Kong Trademarks. Think Puerto Rico.
Posted in Legal NewsJust got back from a family vacation in Puerto Rico. While there, I saw a rental car company called “Target.” This company had the same logo as the Target stores so common on the U.S. mainland. Well of course that got me to thinking. Is this rental car company infringing on Target (the store’s) trade-name… Continue Reading
How To Change Your China Employer AND Keep Your Work Permit
Posted in Basics of China Business Law, Legal NewsMy law firm does not generally handle visa/work permit matters in China as it typically is not worthwhile to pay lawyer rates for this. The other day, I got an email from a loyal reader I know, asking me how she could go to work for a new China employer, without having to relinquish her… Continue Reading
Economic Downturns. Bad for Foreigners. In China And Always.
Posted in China Business, China Travel, Legal NewsI am just returning from a delightful family vacation in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we got around mostly by taxi. Both my kids speak Spanish fairly well and I am totally willing to fake it. One of the things I quickly learned from our conversations with the taxi drivers is that there is a… Continue Reading
China Sucks At Football/Soccer. What Does That Tell Us?
Posted in China BusinessI am of the view that I can understand about 50% of a country by going into five of its grocery stores and by watching five basketball games of its best players. I have a friend who is a dancer and she says she can understand a country by watching its people dance. I know… Continue Reading
Top Ten Asian Cities For FDI in 2012. China Snares Three.
Posted in China BusinessThe Financial Times’ FDIintelligence site [subscription required] just came out with its list of the top ten Asian cities for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2012 and three China cities made the list: Hong Kong, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. This ranking is based on data and expert opinion used to rank cities with the best prospects… Continue Reading
Eight Trends To Watch In China’s Luxury Sector
Posted in China Business, Recommended ReadingInteresting (and blisffully short and to the point) PowerPoint on luxury goods over at the The China Observer Blog, entitled, “Eight Trends to Watch in China’s Luxury Sector.” What I found most interesting about the eight trends is that none of them came as much of a surprise to me, and it is not as… Continue Reading
Coming To Terms With China. A Simple Statement.
Posted in China Business, Recommended ReadingJust read a post at the Entrepreneurship as an Adventure blog, entitled, “Coming to Terms with China.” This is a blog written by a young entrepreneur trying to make a go of running a small business in China. The blog is subtitled Entrepreneurship as an Adventure Sport and it is about exactly that: the adventures… Continue Reading
How And Why To Do Your China Film As A Co-Production
Posted in China Film Industry, UncategorizedThe following is a guest post by Robert Cain, who I met a few months ago at the US-China Film Co-Production Summit. Rob has worked for more than 20 years in Hollywood and in the global entertainment industry, primarily as a production, finance, strategy and creative development expert. He has been doing business in China… Continue Reading
The China Slowdown And Extracting YOUR Assets/Product/Equipment/Molds
Posted in China Business, Legal NewsI am in the process of writing an article for a leading publication on the things I am seeing that tell me China’s economy is cooling. The statistics from China seem to be saying everything is just fine, but man, all I can tell you is that my firm has been absolutely inundated with matters… Continue Reading
The Impacts Of China’s Real Estate Crash. A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall.
Posted in China BusinessThis is part II of a series of an occasional series of posts we will be running here on what our lead China lawyer, Steve Dickinson, is seeing of China’s real estate market, based on his living “on the ground” in Qingdao. Here it is: By: Steve Dickinson There are two types of real estate… Continue Reading
China’s Real Estate Bubble Has Burst. The View From Qingdao.
Posted in China BusinessBy: Steve Dickinson I have been engaged in a friendly debate with a number of economists about the date when the Chinese real estate market “bubble” will finally burst. The opinions of the economists vary. Some believe the bubble will never burst. Some project that the bubble will burst “sometime” in the future. The future… Continue Reading
Seeking Genuine Apple Product From China? Go To Sanlitun.
Posted in China BusinessJust got my third email this week from someone who bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of “iPhones” from someone in China only to receive rank fakes. All three emailers were so blinded by the idea of buying iPhones at ridiculously low prices that they did nothing to make sure the sellers were legitimate,… Continue Reading
China’s Cutthroat Internet Competition. Foreigners Need Not Apply?
Posted in China Business, Legal NewsAbout a year ago, veteran China journalist Chris Myrick wrote a very thoughtful and well-researched article on China internet competition for knowledge@Wharton. The article is entitled “Land-grab Mentality: The Cutthroat Competition on China’s Internet” and it discusses the increasingly hostile and legalistic competition between China’s leading internet companies. I was quoted in that article and… Continue Reading
Ancient China Business Scam. Back With A Vengeance This Season.
Posted in China BusinessAs a China lawyer, I hate Decembers. I love them because they are always one of our firm’s busiest months (which is true in spades this year), but I hate them because they are also the month when we get the most contacts regarding frauds and scams (which is also true in spades this year). … Continue Reading
China And Its People. Just ONE Book.
Posted in China Travel, Good People, Recommended ReadingMy firm is in the throes of defending a strike suit brought against Sea Shepherd by Japanese whaling interests. The Japanese whalers are seeking an injunction to stop Sea Shepherd. Under U.S. law, to get equity, one must do equity and one of the things we have learned about the Japanese whaler plaintiffs that we… Continue Reading
Drafting A China Manufacturing Agreement. Watching The Sausage Get Made. Part II.
Posted in Legal NewsYesterday, I did a post, entitled, “Drafting A China Manufacturing Agreement. Watching The Sausage Get Made,” seting out many of the questions we typically ask our clients before we begin drafting their OEM agreements. A reader, Phil, left us the following comment to that post: Can I ask about the wording of your agreements in… Continue Reading
China’s Candle Production. Nothing Is Static.
Posted in Good People, Recommended ReadingYou can blow out a candle But you can’t blow out a fire Once the flames begin to catch The wind will blow it higher Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja -The man is dead And the eyes of the world are watching now watching now From the song, Biko, by Peter… Continue Reading
Drafting A China Manufacturing Agreement. Watching The Sausage Get Made.
Posted in China Business, Legal NewsI love it when a blog post just lands in my lap, and one just did. It is a couple of emails from two of my firm’s lawyers to two different clients, both of whom recently retained us to draft OEM Agreements for production of product by factories in China. Both clients are in the… Continue Reading
China Business (Huawei) Puts Money Over Politics. Hmmmm.
Posted in Recommended ReadingVery interesting Wall Street Journal article on how Huawei Technologies Company, China’s hugely successful telecommunications- equipment maker, will be scaling back its dealing with Iran. I see this as a potentially very important milestone in that it seems to indicate that in some circumstances, even Chinese companies widely believed to be “tight” with Beijing will… Continue Reading
A Complete Guide To China’s High-Speed Rail.
Posted in China Travel, Recommended ReadingTrain aficionado, David Feng (and author of China Travel 2.0), recently wrote a very helpful piece for CNNgo on China’s high speed rail, entitled, “A complete guide to China’s high-speed rail: Four expert tips and 5 top lines travelers shouldn’t miss.“ If you will be traveling on China’s high-speed rail or even if you are… Continue Reading
China Housing Prices. Everything Is Relative.
Posted in China BusinessGot the above graph from a China Tells post, entitled, “A Comparison between China and US housing Prices.” The post seems to make the argument that housing prices in China are not so high, especially when we compare them with those in the United States: Is China’s housing price expensive? Depends. Expensive is always a… Continue Reading
Film Production In China. SARFT Makes Life Better.
Posted in China Business, China Film IndustryOne of the things we have learned in representing companies involved in China’s film industry is that it is the theater owners who seem to make the most money from films shown in China. But Just last week China’s government film agency mandated that the share of film ticket sales be lowered for theater owners…. Continue Reading
Service In China. Good Luck With That, Part II.
Posted in China Business, China TravelThe Seeing Red in China blog has a really funny post on service (actually the lack therof) in China, entitled, “Don’t expect customer service in China.” The post starts out describing a role playing game the blogger had his Chinese students play where one student was the hotel manager addressing the complaints of the hotel… Continue Reading
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