China Law Blog - China Law for Business

We have many times written of the risks foreigners face of being found on the wrong side of China's criminal laws. I cannot emphasize enough the need for foreigners to take China's criminal laws seriously. My firm has helped oversee a number of criminal cases in China involving foreigners in China and I cannot tell you how tired I am of hearing our clients confidently (at least initially) seek to assure us that they will be fine because what they were doing helped bring jobs and money to China.

We are always emphasizing that China will, with little or no compunction, jail foreigners who violate China's criminal laws, even if the offending action is not a crime back in the home countrty.  And forget about getting much help from your embassy beyond maybe some help in finding your lawyers and seeking to monitor your case for procedural fairness. 

I am writing of criminal law today because I was contacted by a couple journalists seeking my views on the recent 13 year jail sentence given to Australian Matthew Ng by a Chongqing judge. Both reporters wanted my views on whether the sentence was fair or not and my response was that I didn't know. They seemed puzzled. "Are you not familiar with the case," they asked. "I actually am very familiar with the case," I replied, "but that means I know anywhere from 1 to 40% of what actually happened and without having sat through the entire trial (or even one second of it), I simply cannot opine as to its fairness."

Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote on this same case, in a post entitled, "China Business. China Jails. China Hostages," wherein I embraced the moniker of fear monger: 

Nearly every time I write on this topic, I get at least one email from someone accusing me of fear mongering. I used to dispute that accusation, now I heartily embrace it. I embrace it because the overwhelming majority of foreign companies doing business in China make no allowance even for the possibility of one of their people going to jail or being held hostage.

For previous posts on this subject, please check out the following:

• Shutting Down A China Rep Office Without Going To Jail
• Beijing Olympics -- You Want Jail Time With That?
• Avoiding Chinese Jails. I'm Talkin' To You.
• U.S. Company Bribery In China: Violate The Law, Go To Jail
• Sanlu's Lessons For Foreign Managers In China....Because Jail Is Probably Not Where You Want To Be
• Avoiding Chinese Jails. The Thai Bar Edition
• How Not To Get Kidnapped In China
• China Hostage Situation. Now IS A Good Time To Pay Your Debts
• How To Avoid Getting Kidnapped In China. Plan In Advance Or Go Home

In that post from a year ago, I talked of the two things that spurred the post and one was Matthew Ng:

Two things have converged to make me want to write on this topic today. The first was that I am in the midst of taking Typhoid pills for upcoming foreign travel. I need to take four of them every other day, at proscribed times, and they need to be kept refrigerated. This has not been that easy because I have been travelling like a mad man of late and I don't feel like carrying a refrigerator with me. So I keep thinking about stopping the regimen, but I haven't and I am sure I won't. It just makes sense for me to plan in advance to protect my health on my trip.

I have been going to the same travel medicine physician for years and every time I go, she engages in the same routine. She pulls out a map and we discuss every single place I will be going and we talk about what sorts of things I will be doing while there. She now knows I am a pretty low risk guy because my travel life basically consists of my staying in nice hotels and eating good food and engaging in business meetings and very very little else. Yet, every time I try to bag off on some shot or some horrible pill, she will tell me about how someone she knew got in a car accident requiring a blood transfusion.... Invariably, I end up taking every shot and pill on offer. Does she know too much and I too little?

I guess I am the lawyer to her being the doctor. 

The other thing is the recent arrest of yet another Chinese-Australian on criminal charges. Now before I go any further in talking about this particular case, let me stress two things. One, I know absolutely nothing about this case other than what I have read about it on the internet. Two, I have no idea whether the person involved is guilty or not and I have no idea whether he was arrested based on legitimate evidence of guilt or if he is being railroaded for business reasons, as his people are claiming. I do know, however, that these sort of cases go on all the time (usually on a much lower level and with much less publicity) and they scare the hell out of me.

The cases my firm has handled typically involve a foreign company owing money or a foreign company getting into the cross-hairs of someone. Then, the police start holding someone from the foreign company. We typically handle these situations by negotiating the amount of the debt and/or the fine and advising our client to get the arrested person out of China post-haste and, in many cases, to think long and hard about the company remaining on in China as well.

The second thing causing me to write on this topic today is an article John Garnaut (someone who has consistently done a good job of covering China) article in Australia's Business Day, entitled "China's Straight Shooters."  This article posits that the threat of criminal prosecution is always there for those doing business in China and things are only getting worse:

Law, politics and corruption are tangled so tightly together in China that it is impossible to invest faith in any given legal outcome. Criminal proceedings are commonly used as leverage in commercial disputes.

This is a growing problem for foreign businesses and especially their ethnic Chinese executives, such as Australian Matthew Ng, who has been arrested for ‘‘embezzlement’’ in Guangzhou in the context of a dispute with a locally powerful state-owned firm. If he is convicted, then that fact alone will not be enough to convince many observers that he is guilty.

The Chinese legal system can be a tool of unexpected tragedy to foreign business people, but it is an everyday migraine for home-grown entrepreneurs. There are so many laws and regulations in China it is almost impossible to avoid bending some of them.

These rules are designed to be sufficiently ambiguous to place huge administrative discretion in the hands of officials.

They can be bent at a price or avoided at some risk. And that’s where entrepreneurs are expected to discreetly bribe their way to opportunities and insurance in case things go wrong.

A year ago and even more so today, I find myself agreeing with Garnaut on how hugely difficult it is for even the most law abiding company to remain in full compliance with China's myriad laws and of how the penalties for non-compliance are all over the map.  In my original post, I talked of the advise I gave a U.S. company that had been operating illegally in China:

Just this morning, a company asked me whether it should reveal to investors what it has already done in China when there is a chance that what it has already done in China should not have been done without first forming a Chinese WFOE. My response was essentially that the risk of China ever finding out is probably very low and the risk of China doing anything if it did find out is probably very low too, but that if China should find out it might do anything ranging from imposing some taxes and penalties to never letting that company and its people do anything in China again. It is just this sort of range of punishments that can be so effective at keeping everyone constantly on their toes and forever beholden to the powers that be.

I concluded that post by positing that at least things are not getting any worse in China, but that is not good cuase to relax:

Is criminal prosecution always lurking in China? Have things only gotten worse? I answer a weak "no" to both those questions, but I do hope my even asking them has scared at least a few of you. Oh, and for those who think you have nothing to worry about because you never do anything wrong, let me tell you that I have seen enough legal car accidents to know that you are wrong to think that way.  

One of the reporters with whom I spoke today asked me if Matthew Ng's sentence means that it is "open season" on foreigners. My response was that "one case does not a season make." He then asked if I thought foreigners can get a fair trial in China and, much to his surprise, I said, "yes." I then added that it, of course, depends on the specific case and on the judge. I then stressed again that as troubled as I am about Mr. Ng's case, I do not know enough about its underlying facts to let it influence my opinion one way or the other as to how foreigners are treated in China's courts. But I then added that the fact that the media and others were allowed so few views of the proceedings in that case is absolutely cause for concern and it forces us to think the worst of what transpired.

Nonetheless, I guess in the end, we all are going to have no choice but to see this as an isolated incident involving a defendant who very well may be guilty of all charges. If we think of it in any other way, we would never cross the street. Most of us would prefer to get our shots and leave the house than remain "safe" but cooped up all day.  

What do you think? Will any of this impact you at all?

Last November, the Asian Studies Program and the Law School of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Catholic University of Chile) hosted a Summit on Chinese Business Law and Practice in Santiago.  As I mentioned in my post on that event, I had very high hopes for the Summit, in part because it was organized by Marcos Jaramillo, the head of the University's Asian Studies progrm and someone I have known and respected for years.

Sure enough, the 2010 event was a great success, and I am happy to announce that the Second Summit on Chinese Business Law and Practice is now just around the corner.  It will be held on Friday, November 18th, again at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago.  Sponsors include the Chilean-Chinese Chamber of Commerce, the Asia Pacific Chamber of Commerce, Clifford Chance, and the Chilean Federation of Industry.

And this time, yours truly will be among the speakers. I will be presenting on “Avoiding and Winning Chinese Disputes.”  The Summit will also feature the following:

• Marcos Jaramillo, giving an “Overview of Dispute Settlement and Options”
• Tzu-Hsin Shen, speaking on “Litigation in the People’s Courts”
• Patrick Zheng, speaking on “An Insider’s Perspective: CETAC Arbitration in the Mainland”

Detailed information on the summit is available here.  I hope to see you there/Espero verle allí.

For the last couple of years, there has been massive discussion regarding Variable Interest Entities (VIEs) in China. We at China Law Blog have taken a strong stand on them and our position has always been that we will not do them because we do do not think they hold up to legal scrutiny. Or to put it another way, our law firm is too small to withstand the onslaught of malpractice litigation we forsee when these VIEs start to unravel.

Under a VIE structure, a Chinese Internet provider is effectively owned by a foreign entity through a complex set of contractual arrangements, rather than through ownership of stock.  The control by the foreign entity is so total and complete that the arrangement is considered the equivalent of ownership under U.S. accounting rules. However, by there being no actual foreign ownership of stock, these VIE structures have managed to operate in China, evading the clear rules restricting foreign ownership.

Our concern has always been that the Chinese side in these deals will be able to jettison the foreign company because the foreign company will not be well positioned to fight back because its connection with China is not legal. We are hearing that none of the Big Four accounting firms will have anything more to do with VIE deals so it appears that our stand on this issue has now become the new reality.

Others do not see things the same as us and think that we are being too cautious and that VIEs are too important to China and so will always be protected. 

This Tuesday, November 1, there is going to be a web discussion/debate/cage fight involving some very outspoken people on VIE structures. The event is going to consist of CLB's own Steve Dickinson (an attorney), China Hearsay's Stan Abrams (an attorney), China Accounting Blog's Paul Gillis (an accountant), and China Finance Blog's Fredrik Öqvist (a financial analyst). 

There will also be a VIE-related Q&A through the G+ site during the course of the week. Anyone with an interest in VIEs should tune in. Go here to find out more. The main event will take place this Tuesday, November 1, from 10 am until 11 am EST.

For background on VIEs, I suggest you read the following China Law Blog posts:

• Variable Interest Entities (VIE) In China. What Would The Buddha (Steel) Say?
• China. Where Everything Is Local. Until It's Not.
• Gigamedia And The Perils Of VIEs. Dude, Where's My Chop?
• Thinking Clearly About Chinese Companies Listed On US Stock Exchanges. Or, If A Tree Falls In A Sino-Forest....
• China Law: Don't Blame It On The Gray.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Fraud. Clear Speaking On VIEs.
• Who Owns China's Internet? Why Even Ask That?
• China VIE Structures, The Podcast. Money....So Money.
• VIEs In China. The End Of A Flawed Strategy.
• China VIEs. The End Of A Flawed Strategy. An Update/Rebuttal.

And the following China Hearsay posts:

• The VIE Discussion Continues – 11/1/11 on G+
• The VIE Meta-Narrative: Illegal vs. Invalid
• A Post-holiday Update on VIE Chatter
• CSRC VIE Research Report Leaked to Media
• Today’s VIE Rumorfest – Update for 9/27
• A New Front Opens in the War on VIEs – Part I
• A New Front Opens in the War on VIEs - Part II

And the following China Accounting posts:

• New VIE IPOs and enhanced disclosures
• Cleaning up the VIE sector - Updated
• Are VIEs a going concern?
• Are VIEs a going concern - revisited
• Cash and VIE 
• Statistics on VIE usage
• Emperor's new suit: VIEs in China
• Explaining VIE structures
• PRC challenge to VIE structures
• Cleaning up the VIE sector

And the following China Finance posts:

• Consolidating Recent Opinions on VIEs
• The CSRC Research Paper and Its Possible Impact
• VIE News Today: More Risk or Government Approval?
• VIEs under IFRS, WFOEs With Variation
• GigaMedia's VIE Lawsuit
• Who Owns What? Or, Aligning Incentives in VIE Organisations

If you read all of the above, you will probably know more about VIEs than anyone else alive. If you are going to read just one post, make it "Explaining VIE structures." Oh, and just to give you more to read, I also recommend you read the Silicon Hutong post, "VIEs, The Long Resolution." In that post, David Wolf talks of how the Chinese government likes to "boil its frogs slowly, not all at once," and he then talks of how VIEs are on the wrong side of where China wants to be going. I could not agree more. I do not see VIEs disappearing overnight; instead, I see foreign companies involved with VIEs suffering a very long and very gradual squeeze out.

What do you think?

I live in a house with three fashion-conscious females, which means a fairly steady TV diet of Project Runway and Fashion Police (both of which I really like), Say Yes to the Dress (which I hate) and What Not to Wear (which I despise maybe more than any show on TV). Overall, I love fashion because it is a leading source of business for my law firm. For years, we represented companies that sourced their clothes manufacturing to Korea, then China came along, and now Vietnam.

I have always liked fashion related clients because they have such interesting intellectual property issues which can vary so much from country to country. Can you copyright an article of clothing? Can you trademark it?  Can you copyright the design? What about "look and feel." It depends.

There are no fewer than three excellent fashion law blogs and all frequently discuss the IP issues inherent in the business:

• Case Clothesed
• Counterfeit Chic
• Fashion Law Blog

I am talking about fashion today not just because there was no Project Runway episode this week, but because I just learned that Michael Zakkour, who has been helping foreign (mostly Western) fashion companies in Asia for many years (and with whom I have worked on many China/Vietnam projects), will be speaking in New York City next month on China fashion. The title of Mike's talk is "One Year on the Front Lines in China's Luxury and Apparel Markets." The talk is being put on by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, the Fashion institute of Technology and Technomic Asia and it will be on October 3.

Here's the blurb on Mike's talk:

China is now the number one market in the world for apparel and accessories and is also the world's largest market for a wide-array of other luxury and premium products.  Renowned China expert Michael Zakkour, Principal of Technomic Asia, a consulting firm, will take you on a fascinating journey into the world of Chinese fashion, apparel, accessories and luxury products, detailing a year-long study of what the consumers want, who is selling it to them, and how they do it.

Topics will include:

• The China apparel and accessory market (market size and scope, current trends, business opportunities and hurdles, case studies, how to get started or expand in China)
• China’s appetite for fragrances and body care products not made in China
• A comprehensive look at the Chinese consumer (demographics, spending habits, what they want and what companies can deliver)
• What the next 1-5 years will bring to China and why winning there is crucial for the survival of commercial pursuits

Mark Greiz, Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Chief Consultant at MG Consulting will also be speaking. Professor Lawrence Delson of the Fashion Institute of Technology and New York University and President of Delson International Inc., will be moderating the event.

If you are involved in or interested in the fashion business as it relates to China, this is a can't miss event. 

I am going to be giving two China talks in September. My first talk is going to be on September 14, 2011, in Seattle, before a dual-meeting of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) and the Seattle Technical Forum. It will be at The Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Avenue Northeast, Bellevue, WA. The title for the event is "Legal Challenges of IT in a Globalized World." In other words, what do IT companeis need to know when doing business internationally. 

The format is going to consist of four lawyers, myself included, speaking for twenty-five minutes each, followed by a long Q&A session. I love this sort of format, especially at an event intended for non-lawyers. With only twenty-five minutes, my goal will not be to explain international IP law (that would take more than 25 hours) but to raise the key issues and to convey the importance of not assuming anything.

I will be sharing the stage with Russell Weed, who will be speaking on "Growth Strategies and Stages of Financing for Start-ups," Madhu Singh who will be speaking on "Social media and the Cloud the rise of new IP concerns," and Adam Goldblatt,, who will be speaking on "Inception Through First Financing."

My next stop will be Grinnell, Iowa (hence the title of this post), where I will be speaking on international careers at my alma mater, Grinnell College. Earlier this year, the New York Times did an article talking about how "nearly one of every 10 [Grinnell College] applicants being considered for the class of 2015 is from China." I do not remember a single student from Asia when I was there. I cannot wait to see it again.

Just read a surprisingly interesting article on social networking on Business Insider, entitled "LinkedIn CEO: Does Anybody Have The Free Time For Google+?." The article is on recent talks given by Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner, super-agent Ari Emanuel (of Entourage fame) and Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.

Among other things, these three talked about the limitations of social networks.

I liked Weiner's take:

"Nobody has any free time," he said. "Unlike social platforms and TV, which can coexist, you don't see people using Twitter while they're using Facebook, or using Facebook while they're using Linkedin."

He went on to say that the social networking landscape has been pretty straightforward in recent years-- people generally use Linkedin for professional networking, Facebook for family and friends, and Twitter to microcast their thoughts to an audience. But, "you introduce Google+, where am I going to spend that next minute or hour of my discretionary time? I have no more time."

The writer then notes that "at some point social networking becomes a zero sum game. For Google+ to win in the mainstream, somebody else is going to have to lose." I agree..

Here is my take on these mediums as they relate to social networking, in general, and to China, in particular:

Blogs. I had this discussion just yesterday with Damjan DeNoble of Asia Health Care Blog (and a summer associate at my law firm). We were bemoaning how so many of the great China blogs either no longer exist or are posting far less. I attribute this in large part to blogging having become less social. In the old days, this blog used to fairly frequently get hundreds of comments on a post. That virtually never happens anymore despite the fact that our readership is considerably higher now than it was then. Most people read blogs through RSS feeders as a source of information. They then tend to go elsewhere to communicate about what they have read.

Twitter. I was once a Twitter fan. I even did a quasi-mandatory blog post on China people on Twitter. I loved its immediacy. I loved getting five good answers within fifteen minutes of tweeting my question as to the best hotel in Urumqi for taking a deposition that could be broadcast over the internet (this really happened). But eventually, I got tired of how Twitter's 140-character limit seemed to lead more to self-promotion than to real discussion and I shut it down. For a fuller explanation on why I am so down on Twitter, check out, "Is Twitter Relevant for China?." I don't think it is.

Linkedin. I have been on Linkedin since forever and I have always really liked it, both for what it is and for what it isn't (though it seems to be trying a bit too hard to become what it isn't). I like how Linkedin lets me keep easy tabs on "my people," which means anyone with whom I have crossed paths and have thought something along the lines of "I like that person," or "that person knows his stuff," or "I am going to have to remember that person for the next time my client needs help from a shoe factory expert in Xinjiang." I spend maybe five minutes a day on Linkedin, but in that time, I can see what has changed with my people and if one of my people has been promoted or changed jobs or whatever, I can send them a quick note congratulating them on their newest accomplishment. If you are one of "my people" and we have not yet linked, check me out here and let me know. And how cool is it that my Linkedin url is www.linkedin.com/in/chinalaw? 

I also like Linkedin for its groups feature, which is my segue into making an unmitigated plug for the China Law Blog Group on Linkedin. It is a place for vibrant China discussions, Q&A, and networking. Most important of all, it is blissfully and near-religiously spam free. If you have not already joined it, you most certainly should and you can do so by going here.

Linkedin is trying to be more immediate and social, but I don't think it has or ever really will succeed at that. 

Facebook. I have never liked Facebook for anything more than stalking my two eminently charming daughters so I can surprise, embarrass and/or piss them off with my knowledge of their social lives.

Facebook is weird.

I don't like how people I barely knew in high school ask to friend me. I don't like how I always accept those friend requests because I don't want to offend anyone. I don't like how someone with whom I came to blows in college (and who pulled my hair when I got him in a full nelson) has asked me at least three times to be his friend. I don't like how other people from my college who I do not even remember have asked me to friend them, forcing me to consult with my far more social college roommate on whether to accept or not.

Most of all, I dislike how what I say is broadcast to all of my "friends." Both my mother and 14-year-old daughter can see me swear up a storm when I am angry, and be bored stiff when I post my thoughts on China.  I am also uncomfortable with my clients and business associates seeing me in social situations. I am from the old school and believe (and I am half-kidding here) that my clients should think that I am working on their particular matters 19 hours a day.

I have many China-related friends on Facebook, but my level of interest in what they have to say can really vary. Some of these people are real friends of mine (you all remember what real friends are, right? I mean as opposed to Facebook “friends”) and I want to know when they are off to Brazil or Xi'an on vacation. As for some of the China people whom I respect but do not consider friends, I could do without hearing about the great spaghetti bolognese they just cooked up.

Google+.  I am really liking Google+ and I am convinced just about all "China people" will eventually migrate over there and make it THE place for China discussions.

The two things I like most about Google+ are its circles feature and its newness. Its circle feature is sheer genius. Now I know Facebook allows you to form groups and divide out your friends that way, but near as I can tell, people don't really do that. People do do that on Google+, however, because it is so easy and it is pretty much mandatory. So I have set up a China circle in which I have put all of the China people I know who I have been able to find on Google+. I put some of those people into my circle of "business friends" as well, consisting of people I know mostly from business, but truly know and like. An even more select few have made it into my friends circle, reserved for real friends.  The beauty of Google+ is that nobody knows the circle or circles in which I have put them. The other beauty of the circle thing is that on busy days I just check my friends and family circles and I skip the rest. 

I am telling you, this thing is working. Good China people are already on there,  good information is being conveyed, and good discussions are ensuing.

The newness of Google+ is also a plus (bad pun intended). I like how I can take all that I have learned from other social networking sites and apply them to Google. It's a fresh start. The people I never knew in college? They can put me in whatever circle they like, but I am going to put them in my "sandbox circle" until I have figured out where they ultimately belong.  Just as my iPhone has a folder called "unused" for those apps I barely ever use, I know I will eventually create something similar for those people whose comments I want to read only during the third year of my retirement, if I ever retire. Just have to think of the right name for it....

My grand plan is to start pushing some of my Facebook friends over to Google+ and then to shut down my Facebook account entirely. I hope to accomplish this within the next few months, but no way will I go into 2012 with my Facebook account intact. Google+ and Linkedin are all I need. Take that Zuckerberg.

I am here on Google+ (my profile is still a work in progress). Circle me if you want to know what I am saying there (pretty much nothing so far) and I will probably put you in one of my circles. Just don't bother asking me which one.

What do you think? Is Google+ the future for those interested in China? Where do Facebook and Linkedin fit into the China discussion and into your life? Does Twitter even matter?

China Law Blog's own Steve Dickinson is going to be setting forth the "golden rules" for managing your Intellectual Property (IP) in China. Steve will be giving this talk on how to protect your IP in China on June 22,  2011, at 4:00 pm at REDSTAR Times Media, Room 41, Building 3, Creative Industry Park, 100 Nanjing Lu, Qingdao. Because Steve's presentation is part of the China IPR SME Helpdesk attendance is restricted to "only European SMEs and SME intermediaries."  The event is free and it is described as follows: 

Every company operating in China is aware that intellectual property issues are part of the business environment but protecting your rights can seem expensive and complicated. What is the best way to tackle this issue? What are the golden rules? This interactive workshop will provide you with a thorough understanding of the options available for any budget and a checklist of actions you can take to make the most of your intellectual property rights. You will learn from real life case studies and the experience of a local IP expert, Steve Dickinson.

For more information, go here.

On April 13, I will be speaking in Anchorage, Alaska, on the practice of international law. My talk will be before the International Law Section of the Alaska Bar Association (of which I am a proud member). This talk will be a variant of a talk I have given a few times to law schools. For more information and to register, go here. 

On April 12, Steve will be speaking at the Sofitel Hotel in Chengdu, China, on China's 12th Five Year Plan. Steve's talk is being put on by the American Chamber of Commerce in Southwest China.  For more information on that talk and to register, go here.

Then on April 14, Steve will be speaking again on China's Five Year Plan, but this time in Beijing as part of an event jointly sponsored by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in China, The Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China, MayCham (The Malaysian Chamber of Commerce) and the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce in China (HKCCC). To find out more about that talk and to register to see it, go here. That one will be during breakfast.

Let us know if you will be at any of these so we can be sure to say "hello."

A client of mine directed me to a link of a Tedx talk by Martin Jacques on China. I watched it and liked it so much I wanted to share it with our readers. You can watch and listen to the speech here and below is a transcription of Mr. Jacques' speech.

It is certainly thought provoking. What do you think?

The world is changing with really remarkable speed. If you look at the chart at the top here, you’ll see that in 2025, these Goldman-Sachs projections suggest that the Chinese economy will be almost the same size as the American economy. And if you look at the chart for 2050, it’s projected that the Chinese economy will be twice the size of the American economy, and the Indian economy will be almost the same size as the American economy. We should bear in mind here that these projections were drawn up before the western financial crisis. A couple of weeks ago I was looking at the latest projection by BNP Paribas for when China will have a larger economy than the United States.  Goldman-Sachs predicts 2027; the post-crisis projection is 2020. That’s just a decade away.

China is going to change the world in two fundamental respects. First of all, it’s a huge, developing country with a population of 1.3 billion people, which has been growing for over thirty years at around ten percent a year. And within a decade, it will have the largest economy in the world. Never before in the modern era has the largest economy in the world been that of a developing country, rather than a developed country. Secondly, for the first time in the modern era, the dominant country in the world, which is what I think China will become, will be not from the west and from very, very different civilizational roots. 

Now, I know it’s a widespread assumption in the West that as countries modernize, they also westernize.  This is an illusion. It’s an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not; it is also shaped equally by history and culture.  China is not like the west, and it will not become like the west. It will remain, in very fundamental respects, very different.

Now, the big question here is obviously, well, how so we make sense of China? How do we try and understand what China is? And the problem we have in the West in the moment, by and large, is that the conventional approach, is that we understand it really in western terms, using western ideas. We can’t.  Now, I want to offer you three building blocks for trying to understand what China is like, just as a beginning. The first is this: that China is not really a nation-state.  Okay, it’s called itself a nation-state for the last hundred years. But anyone who knows anything about China knows it’s a lot older than this. 

This is what China looked with the victory of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC at the end of the warring state period, the birth of modern China, and you can see it against the boundaries of modern China. Or, immediately afterwards, the Han dynasty, still 2,000 years ago, and you can see already it occupies most of what we know as eastern China, which is where the vast majority of Chinese lived then and live now.  Now what is extraordinary about this is that what gives China it’s sense of being China, what gives the Chinese the sense of what it is to be Chinese, comes not from the last hundred years, not from the nation-state period, which is what happened in the West, but from the period, if you like, of the civilization-state. And thinking here, for example, of customs like ancestral worship, of a very distinctive notion of the state, and likewise a very distinctive notion of the family, social relationships like guangxi, Confucian values, and so on, these are all things that come from the period of the civilization-state. In other words, China, unlike the western states and most countries in the world, is shaped by its sense of civilization; its existence as a civilization-state rather than as a nation-state.

And there’s one other thing to add to this, and that is this: of course we know China is big; it’s huge, demographically and geographically, with a population of 1.3 billion people. What we often aren’t really aware of is the fact that China is extremely diverse and very pluralistic, and, in many ways, very decentralized. You can’t run a place on this scale simply from Beijing, even though we think this to be the case. It’s never been the case. 

So this is China: a civilization-state rather than a nation-state. What does it mean? Well, I think it has all kinds of profound implications. I’ll give you two quick ones: the first is that the most important political value for the Chinese is unity, is the maintenance of Chinese civilization. Two thousand years ago, Europe, breakdown, the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire; it divided, and it’s remained divided ever since.  China, over same time period, went in exactly the opposite direction, very painfully holding this huge civilization- civilization-state- together. 

The second is Hong Kong. Do you remember the handover of Hong Kong by Britain to China in 1997?  You may remember what the Chinese constitutional proposition was: one country, two systems. Wager that barely anyone in the West believed them. Ha, window dressing. When China gets its hands on Hong Kong, that won’t be the case. Thirteen years on, the political and legal system in Hong Kong is as different as it was in 1997.  We were wrong. Why were we wrong? We were wrong because we thought, naturally enough, in nation-state ways. Think of Germany's unification in 1990. What happened? Well basically, the East was swallowed by the West. One nation, one system: that is the nation-state mentality. But you can’t run a country like China, a civilization-state, on the basis of one civilization, one system. It doesn’t work. So, actually, the response of China to the question of Hong Kong, as it will be to the question of Taiwan, was a natural response: one civilization, many systems. 

Let me offer you another building block to try and understand China, maybe not such a comfortable one.  The Chinese have a very, very different conception of race than most other countries. Do you know, of the 1.3 billion Chinese, over ninety percent of them think they belong to the same race, the Han. Now, this is completely different from the world’s other most populous countries. India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil: all of them are multiracial. The Chinese don’t feel like that; China is only multiracial, really, at the margins. So the question is, why? Well the reason, I think, essentially is, again, back to the civilization-state. A history of at least two thousand years, of history, of conquest, occupation, absorption, assimilation, and so on, led to the process by which, over time, the notion of the Han emerged, nurtured, of course, by a growing and very powerful sense of cultural identity. 

Now, the great advantage of this historical experience has been that without the Han, China could never have held together. The Han identity has been the cement which has held this country together. The great disadvantage of it is that the Han have a very weak conception of cultural difference. They really believe in their own superiority, and they are disrespectful of those who are not.

Or let me give you my third building block of the Chinese state. The relationship between the state and society in China is very different from that in the West. Now, we in the West overwhelmingly seem to think, these days at least, that the authority and legitimacy of the state is a function of democracy. The problem with this proposition is that the Chinese state enjoys more legitimacy, and more authority, among the Chinese, than is true with any western state. 

And the reason for this is because, well, there are two reasons, I think. And it’s obviously got nothing to do with democracy, because, in our terms, the Chinese certainly don’t have a democracy. But the reason for this is, firstly, because the state, in China enjoys a very special significance, as the representative, the embodiment, and the guardian of Chinese civilization, of the civilization-state. This is as close as China gets to a kind of spiritual role. 

And the second reason is because, whereas in Europe and North America the state’s power is continuously challenged -- I mean, in European tradition, historically against the Church, against the sections of the aristocracy, against merchants, and so on -- for one thousand years, the power of the Chinese state has not been challenged. It’s had no serious rivals. So you can see that the way in which power has been constructed in China is very different from our experience in western history. The result, by the way, is that the Chinese have a very different view of the state. Whereas we tend to view it as an intruder, a stranger, certainly an organ whose powers need to be limited, defined, and constrained, the Chinese don’t see the state that way at all. The Chinese view the state as an intimate. Not just as an intimate, actually, but as a member of the family. Not just, in fact, as a member of the family, but as the head of the family: the patriarch of the family. 

This is the Chinese view of the state. Very, very different to ours. It’s embedded in society in a different kind of way, to what is the case in the West. And I would suggest to you that, actually, what we are dealing with here in the Chinese context is a new kind of paradigm, which is different than anything we’ve had to think about in the past. You know, China believes in the market and the state. Adam Smith, writing in the late eighteenth century, said that the Chinese market is larger, and more developed, and more sophisticated than anything in Europe. And apart from the Mao period, that has remained more or less the case ever since. 

But this is combined with an extremely strong and ubiquitous state; the state is everywhere in China. I mean, its leading firms, many of them are still publicly owned. Private firms, however large they are, depend, in many ways, on state patronage.  argets for the economy, and so on, are set by the state.  And the state, of course, its authority flows into many other areas, as we are familiar with, as in something like the “one child” policy. 

Moreover, this is a very old state tradition, a very old tradition of statecraft. I mean, if you want an illustration of this, the Great Wall is one; but this is another (shows photograph of a canal). This is the Grand Canal, which was constructed in the first instance in the fifth century, BC, and was finally completed in the eighth century, AD. It went for 1,114 miles, linking Beijing with Hangzhou and Shanghai. So there’s a long history of extraordinary state infrastructural projects in China, which I suppose helps us to explain what we see today, which is something like the Three Gorges Dam (shows photo) and many other expressions of state competence within China.

So there we have three building blocks for trying to understand the difference that is China: the civilization-state, the notion of race, and the nature of the state and its relationship to society. And yet we still insist, by and large, on thinking that we can explain China by drawing on western experience, looking at it through western eyes, using western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong, our predictions about what’s going to happen to China are incorrect, this is the reason.  Unfortunately I think, I have to say, that I think our attitude toward China is that of a kind of “little Westerner” mentality. It’s arrogant. it’s arrogant in the sense that we think that we are best and therefore we have the universal measure, and secondly, it’s ignorant. We refuse to really address the issue of difference. 

You know, there’s a very very interesting passage in a book by Paul Cohen, the American historian, and Paul Cohen argues that the West thinks of itself as probably the most cosmopolitan of all cultures. But it’s not. In many ways, it’s the most parochial. Because for the last two hundred years, the West has been so dominant in the world that it’s not really needed to understand other cultures, other civilizations. Because at the end of the day it could, if necessary, by force, get its own way. Whereas those cultures -- virtually the rest of the world -- which have been in a far weaker position vis-à-vis the West, have been thereby forced to understand the West because of the West’s presence in those societies. And therefore they are, as a result, more cosmopolitan, in many ways, than the West. 

I mean, take the question of East Asia. East Asia, Japan, Korea, China, etc.. A third of the world’s population lives there. Now the largest economic region in the world. And I’ll tell you now that East Asians, people from East Asia, are far more knowledgeable about the West than the West is about East Asia.  Now, this point is very germane, I’m afraid, to the present. Because what’s happening, back to that chart at the beginning, the Goldman-Sachs chart, what is happening is that, very rapidly in historical terms, the world is being driven and shaped not by the old, developed countries but by the developing world. We’ve seen this in terms of the G-20 usurping, very rapidly, the position of the G-7 or the G-8. 

And there are two consequences of this: first, the West is rapidly losing its influence in the world. There was a dramatic illustration of this, actually, a year ago at the Copenhagen climate change conferenc where Europe was not at the final negotiating table. When did that last happen? I would wager it was about two hundred years ago. And that is what is going to happen in the future. And the second implication is that the world will inevitably, as a consequence, become increasingly unfamiliar to us, because it will be shaped by cultures and experiences and histories that we are not really familiar with or conversant with. And at last, I’m afraid, take it America and Europe are slightly different, but Europeans, by and large, I have to say, are ignorant, are unaware about the way the world is changing. I’ve got an English friend in China who said, ‘the continent is sleepwalking into oblivion.’ 

Well, maybe that’s true, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But there’s another problem that goes along with this, that Europe is increasingly out of touch with the world, and that is a loss of a sense of the future. I mean, Europe once, of course, commanded the future in its confidence. Take the nineteenth century, for example. But this, alas, is no longer true. If you want to feel the future, if you want to taste the future, try China (shows photo of statue of Confucius); there’s old Confucius. This (shows photo) is a railway station the likes of which you’ve never seen before; it doesn’t even look like a railway station. This is the new Guangzhou railway station for the high-speed trains. China already has a bigger network than anywhere else in the world, and it will soon have more than all the rest of the world put together.

Or take this (shows photo); now this is an idea.  It’s an idea to be tried out shortly in a suburb outside of Beijing. Here you have a mega-bus, on the upper deck it carries about two thousand people, it travels on rails down a suburban road, and the cars travel underneath it. And it does speeds of about up to 100 miles per hour. Now this is the way things are going to move, because China has a very specific problem, which is different from Europe and different from the United States: China has huge numbers of people and no space. So this is a solution to a situation where China’s going to have many, many, many cities over twenty million people. 

Well, what should our attitude be toward this world we see very rapidly developing before us? I think there will be good things about it, and bad things about it. But I want to argue, above all, a big-picture positive for this world. You know, for two hundred years, the world was essentially governed by a fragment of the human population. That’s what Europe and North America represented. The arrival of countries like China and India, between them thirty-eight percent of the world’s population, and others like Indonesia and Brazil and so on, represent the most important single act of democratization in the last two hundred years.  Civilizations and cultures which have been ignored, which had no voice, which were not listened to, which were not known about, will have a different sort of representation in this world. As humanists, we must welcome, surely, this transformation.  And we will have to learn about these civilizations. 

This big ship here (shows photo of two model boats) was the one sailed in by Zheng He in the early fifteenth century on his great voyages around the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and across the Indian Ocean to East Africa. The little boat in front of it was the one in which, eighty years later, Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic. Or, (shows photo) look carefully at this silk scroll made by Zhou Zhou in 1368. I think they’re playing golf. Christ! The Chinese even invented golf. 

Welcome to the future!  Thank you.

A few days ago, co-blogger Steve Dickinson did a post on China's 12th Five Year Plan, entitled, "China's 12th Five Year Plan: A Preliminary Look." This is a follow-up post, reflecting an outline China's National People's Congress (NPC) just put up on its website. Steve has been focusing on the Five Year Plan both because he has and will continue to be speaking on this at various embassies and chambers of commerce (The Swedish Chamber is up next) and because it can be higly relevant for foreign businesses doing business in or with China. Here's Steve's post:

The PRC National People’s Congress has published on its website a basic outline of the numeric goals of the 12th Five Year Plan, as follows:

The draft of China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) was submitted Saturday to the National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature for reviewing.

Following are the key targets of the draft:

Economic targets

• GDP to grow by 7 percent annually on average
• More than 45 million jobs to be created in urban areas
• Urban registered unemployment to be kept at less than 5 percent
• Prices to be kept generally stable

Economic restructuring

• Increased domestic consumption
• Breakthrough in emerging strategic industries
• Service sector value-added output to account for 47 percent of GDP, up 4 percentage points
• Urbanization rate to reach 51.5 percent, up 4 percentage points

Innovation

• Expenditures on research and development to account for 2.2 percent of GDP
• 3.3 patents per 10,000 people

Environment & clean energy

• Non-fossil fuel to account for 11.4 percent of primary energy consumption
• Water consumption per unit of value-added industrial output to be cut by 30 percent
• Energy consumption per unit of GDP to be by 16 percent
• Carbon dioxide emission per unit of GDP to be cut by 17 percent
• Forest coverage rate to rise to 21.66 percent and forest stock to increase by 600 million cubic meters

Agriculture

• Annual grain production capacity to be no less than 540 million tones
• Farmland reserves to be no less than 1.818 billion mu

Livelihood

• Population to be no larger than 1.39 billion
• Life span per person to increase by one year
• Pension schemes to cover all rural residents and 357 million urban residents
• Construction and Renovation of 36 million apartments for low-income families
• Minimum wage standard to increase by no less than 13 percent on average each year

Social management

• Improved public service for both urban and rural residents;
• Improved democracy and legal system;
• Better social management system for greater social harmony;
• More than 10 percent of all residents will be registered as community volunteers.

Reform

• Encourage qualified enterprises to list on stock markets
• In-depth reform in monopoly industries for easier market entry and more competition
• Improved government efficiency and credibility

The stated goals roughly follow the CPC Opinion on the Plan discussed in my previous blog post. The following are particularly important/interesting to note:

The GDP growth target is reduced to 7%

The reliance on pseudo-accurate numbers to give the document an air of scientific precision. My favorite is the rise in forest coverage by 21.66 percent.

As always, there is no mention of HOW the plan will be implemented or HOW the plan will be financed.

What do you think?

By: Rebecca Carlson

NOTE: Rebecca is a new lawyer at the Harris & Moure law firm and this is her first post on this blog. Rebecca recently graduated from the University of Washington School of Law with a J.D. degree and an L.L.M. (advanced law degree) in East Asian Studies. Rebecca is fluent in Japanese and also speaks Mandarin, Korean and Swedish. 

I recently attended an informative presentation at the University of Washington School of Law by Justice Kong Xiangjun, entitled “Intellectual Property Enforcement in China.” Justice Kong is the Chief Judge of the Intellectual Property Tribunal, Supreme People’s Court (SPC) of China, and a widely published Ph.D. of Law. In his presentation, he provided a basic overview of China’s court system and discussed practical issues and recent trends in intellectual property litigation in China.

Court System Overview 

Unlike the American model, which includes both federal and state court systems, China has a single court structure with four levels. The level in which to file a case depends on the type of case and the amount in controversy. Therefore, in all cases, including those involving IP, one of the important initial decisions is to determine the appropriate court in which to file suit. In this regard, IP cases can be heard in IP tribunals, such as the IP Tribunal of the SPC, where Justice Kong serves.

In areas that require highly specialized knowledge, such as IP, the court can decide to appoint a technical expert to sit on the panel to provide insight into the case. The expert has an equal vote in the ruling as the judges.

IP Law Overview

Chinese IP legislation was written to correspond with international IP treaties. Therefore, such treaties are a good reference point for Chinese IP legal research. In addition, Justice Kong pointed out that China judges are able to issue general interpretations of legislation when ruling, even if the interpretation is not at issue in a given case. These general interpretations have the same effect as legislation, and, therefore, must be taken into account in any legal argument.

Trends in China IP

Justice Kong emphasized two recent trends in China IP litigation. First, Chinese companies, in addition to foreign companies, are filing suit for IP enforcement in increasing numbers. Second, plaintiffs are requesting monetary damages, in addition to or in lieu of injunctive relief, with greater frequency. And indeed, courts are awarding ever higher amounts.  

Administrative v. Court Track 

When considering IP enforcement in China, one can file for an administrative hearing or in court. Justice Kong discussed the pros and cons of both options. In general, the administrative track is faster, but the factual analysis is less comprehensive and the application of law is less predictable. In turn, the court track is slower, but the factual analysis is very thorough—each level of court will make findings of both law and fact—and the rulings on the law are more predictible.

The highlight was an extensive Q&A session in which Justice Kong provided detailed responses to a variety of highly specific questions; some of the information is included above. After the presentation, I spoke with my former professor, Professor Dongsheng Zang, who facilitated Justice Kong’s invitation to the UW. His goal is to encourage and build on presentations like this one to create an ongoing, in-depth dialogue on international and Chinese law at the University of Washington. I share in his enthusiasm.

Dan's Note: Seattle Trademark lawyer extraordinaire, Michael Atkins of the Seattle Trademark Lawyer blog attended the same presentation and he wrote on it as well, in a post entitled, "China's Chief Justice Discusses China IP Law at Microsoft Symposium." 

Co-blogger Steve Dickinson and I will be speaking on January 11 at the next AmCham Small Business Forum Event breakfast here:

AmCham-China Conference Center

The Office Park, Tower AB, 6th Floor

No. 10 Jintongxi Road, Beijing, 100020, PRC

Tel: (8610) 8519-0800

Our topic will be "What every SME needs to know about Chinese Law." You can pre-register by going online here or by registering at the event between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.  We will present from around 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and then field questions until around 9:45 a.m. This event is free for AmCham members and "a light breakfast and coffee will be provided." The cost is $50 for AmCham member employees and $100 for non-members.    

We hope to see you there.

We are still fighting to win the American Bar Association Best Blog award in our category for the fourth straight year. We started our campaign very late this year, but if we can get anywhere close to the same number of votes we got last year, we will win it.

We really need your support. If you value what you read here, PLEASE repay us with one minute of your time. 

Here are the steps you need to take:

If you voted last year, you will likely need to recover your password.  You do this simply by going to this page and inputting your email address. You will then receive an email with your password and your screen name.  At that point, you should login to the ABA Journal website here and then once logged in, go here and then scroll down to China Law Blog (second from the top) and click the "Vote" symbol to the left of that.  Thanks!

If you didn't vote last year, you should go here to register. You do not have to be an ABA member (or a lawyer) to vote. When you pick a password, it must be at least 5 characters long. If you have an ABA id/password, it will not work for the ABA Journal site. Once you have activated your registration by clicking on the link that is emailed to you, you then go here to login using the screen name and password you chose when you registered. Once you have logged in, click here and scroll down to China Law Blog (it's second from the top) and click on the "Vote" symbol to the left.

And if you really want to help, please re-post this on your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin or however else you can get the word out to as many people as possible. We can win this but not without your help.  

Thanks everybody!

UPDATE:  We have now moved into second place. Thanks for that, now let's keep it going. Please.

I am going to be speaking on China/International law a whole host of times between now and early November and since my first one is on Monday, now's the time to tell you about them. So here goes.

On Monday, September 27, I am going to be live on Oregon public radio at some point between 8:40 a.m. and 9:40 a.m. PST. The show is "Think Out Loud" and the topic is "Global Trade in the Northwest." The tagline for the show notes that Oregon has shipped more than $10 billion in products between January and July of this year and that "Washington is the most trade-dependent state in the nation." 

On October 8, from 6 pm to 7 pm, I will be speaking in Seattle on the work my firm and I did in Japan for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on Peter Bethune's criminal trial there. My talk is being co-sponsored by the Washington State Bar Association's International Practice and Animal Law sections. I will be discussing the "legal and cultural issues" we faced on Peter's case. Go here if you wish to register. 

On October 21, I will be speaking at the University of Washington School of Law on the nuts and bolts of being an international lawyer. I have given this relatively unscripted talk at a couple of law schools already and though I make no promises as to the quality, I will say I love doing it.   

Then, on October 25, I will be speaking at a National Business Institute Seminar on "The Legalities of Doing Business in China." This seminar is being put on by the National Business Institute (NBI) from 9 am to $:30 pm at the Washington State Convention Center. I will be speaking on "Resolving Disputes with Chinese Parties," discussing mostly how to sue and collect from Chinese companies. Al Clark of Davis Wright Tremaine will be speaking on "Labor Laws and Compliance," William Fisher of Perkins Coie will be speaking on "IP Protection and Enforcement," Frazier Mendel of Schwabe Williamson will be speaking on "Investment and Trade Regulations" and also on "Drafting FDI Documentation, Partnership and Outsourcing Agreements," and Monica Gianni will be speaking on "Taxation Issues." This is a great group of speakers and I am expecting an excellent conference. Go here to learn more and to register.

On November 1, I will be on a panel at the 2010 US China Business Conference in Atlanta. I will write more on this conference as it approaches, but wanted to say something on it now because early bird pricing ends on October 1. This is a big-time event and its speakers will include, among others, the following: 

• Kasim Reed, Mayor of Atlanta
• Ken Cornelius, President and CEO, Siemens One
• Ed Cunningham, Managing Partner, U.S. Renewable Energy Group
• Erin Ennis, Vice President, US-China Business Council (USCBC)
• Joseph A. Guerrisi, Vice President, UPS
• Bilal Kaafarani, Senior Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company
• Clyde C. Tuggle, Senior Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company
• Jack Wen, President, GE Energy China
• Peng Zhao, President, Mingyang's Wind Power Technology Co., Ltd (America)

 I am going to be on the "Building and Doing Business in China" panel. To register, go here. 

On Wednesday, September 8, 2010, The China Business Network will be putting on a China Event at the Cira Center in Philadelphia, entitled, "Put China in Your Business Future." It is shaping up as a great event, and I urge you all to attend. I am going to be on one of the panels so if you are interested in going and wish a discount, please email me.  

The day is going to begin with CEO panels on China Health/Biotech and China Clean Tech/Green Tech.

The CEO Health panel will consist of the following:  

• Martyn Greenacre, Chairman, BMP Sunstone
• Dr. Mike Butler, CEO, Xceleron
• Dr. Ian Hau, CEO, Orchestrall

Dr. Jun Huangpu, of the Mainline Chinese Culture Center, will be moderating. 

The CEO Clean Tech and Green Tech CEO Panel will consist of the following:

• Elinor Haider, CEO, NovaThermal 
• Dr. Stephen Hammer, Executive Director, Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy (JUCCCE) 
• Bill Chandler, CEO, Transition Energy

This session will be moderated by Terry Cooke, CEO, GC3 Strategy

I am on the next panel, which is going to focus on China Capital and Operations, and consist of the following:

• Mark Ellenbogen, Assurance Partner, BDO Seidman
• Wil Block, Relationship Manager, HSBC
• Dan Harris, Founder, Harris & Moure LLC

This panel will be moderated by Janet Carmosky, CEO, The China Business Network

In the afternoon, Janet Carmosky speaking on "Get the Mindset & Map for China Market Access" and on "The Lay of the Land: A Framework for Seeing and Dealing with China." It will also include a "Market Access Case Study" focusing on "How Judge Group Got Started in China. This session will be with Martin E. Judge Jr., CEO, The Judge Group and Alex Van Gorden, General Manager, Orchestrall.   

It will then wrap up with a Q & A session, scheduled to run from 4:30 to 5:00.  This event is being sponsored by Continental Airlines, HSBC, BDO Seidman, Orchestrall, and White & Williams LLP.  

Hope to see you all there. To register, go here. 

Since China's recent spate of school killings, I have received a couple emails asking me "what is going on." I respond by saying I have no clue. I do not explain any further, but if I did, I would say that for me to have any idea as to causation, I would have to know a helluva (that's a word among the 21 and under set) lot more than I do about each of the killings and real information on that sort of thing does not usually come out until years later when someone writes a book on it. I would also have said that I very much doubt that the reasons for the various killings are related and that in all of those cases, no doubt, there were multiple reasons. In other words, it is complicated.

But why deal in nuance when you can use tragedy to advance your own thesis? At least that seems to be the thinking of Mary Nicks Moody who, in a recent post, entitled, "Recent Violence in China - A Reflection of Income Inequalities," confidently proclaims that the killings are due to China's rising income inequalities:

The shocking incident inspired four copycat killing sprees by unemployed or under-employed adult males, most of whom reportedly suffered from mental illness. The killings highlight the need for a better social safety net and social welfare services for the mentally ill, and put into sharp focus the uneven nature of China's economic development and its concomitant social pressures.

The New York Times (who else?) did the same thing with the Times Square bomber, penning an article trying to convince us that it was financial difficulties, not jihadi fanaticism that caused Faisal Shahzad to seek to bomb as many as he could into oblivion.

The underlying theme of all these "my finances made me do it" stories seems to be that if we only had more redistribution of wealth, these sorts of things would be avoided. The problem with this argument is that it has absolutely no basis in reality as there is no evidence of which I am aware in either the United States or in China showing a correlation between murders (particularly multiple murders) and income inequality. The other flaw in these arguments is that they completely fail to explain why billions of people (in the United State and in China and elsewhere) who are struggling to make ends meet do not just go off and engage in a multiple murder.

I grew up in a very working class neighborhood in a very working class city in Michigan and the thing I really hate about the if you aren't rich you are at risk of becoming a multiple murderer theme is that it is so incredibly condescending. Guess what Ms. Moody, I know just a ton of people who are constantly struggling economically and I have no worries about them going off and whacking a bunch of people. In fact, call me naive, but I see them as no more likely to do such a thing than someone with an Ivy League master's degree.

I virtually never attack other writings on China, but this one registered so high on the BS meter that it angered me so much that I could not resist. We deserve better than this.

What do you think?

On Tuesday evening, April 6, I am going to be part of a stellar panel at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, discussing "Doing Business in China: For Better or Worse." Click here for full information and to sign up.

The club describes the event as follows:

Google's recent struggle with China over censorship has raised the possibility that China's regulatory regime may be too restrictive for the free operation of American technology companies. HBS's February review of the Google/China skirmish says that "the Google issue has become a cause celebre that exacerbates the already fragile and festering U.S.-China relationship." Is it worth it for American businesses to acquiesce to the Chinese government's control and censorship requests in order to operate in China's ever-growing market? What do the Chinese people think about their government's censorship of information technology? How will American tech companies survive in China's Internet environment? Experts and insiders weigh in.

The panelists will be the following:

-- Dan Harris, International Lawyer; Harris & Moure, Author, China Law Blog

-- David Gorodyansky, CEO and Co-founder, AnchorFree Inc.

-- George Koo, Ph.D., Special Advisor, Deloitte China Services Group; Member, Committee of 100

-- Jeff Richards, Partner, GGV Capital

-- Edith Yeung, Founder, BizTechDay

-- Quentin Hardy, National Editor, Forbes - Moderator

The Commonwealth Club is at 595 Market Street. Check in is at 6 p.m. The program itself will be from 6:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. and a networking reception will follow. Click here if you want to attend.

Hope to see you there.

When I was in college, I would need to take a bus across a number of Midwestern states to get home for many of the breaks. I hated it with such a passion that upon graduation, I promised myself I would never again take a bus for more than an hour again and I lived up to that promise until last year when I absolutely had to take a 7.5 hour bus from Jinan to Qingdao because the train was out of commission due to a major accident. I hated that too, but at least I now know what people are talking about when they describe speakers so loud and scratchy that you really have no choice but to watch an endless stream of really bad kung-fu movies in Cantonese with subtitles.

Though I have pretty much blocked out virtually everything from my collegiate bus rides, I can still remember how, at least twice, in response to my telling people that my destination was Kalamazoo (my hometown), I was told how there were a lot of nice people there. I always thought statements like that pretty weird, but rather than challenge them by replying along the lines that Kalamazoo probably had no greater percentage of people than anywhere else, or mentioning that I knew plenty of jerks there, I would always just say, "yes" and try to return to my book.

I thought of my collegiate bus rides this weekend after being a panelist at Berkeley's Asia Business Conference 2010. I got to see my eldest daughter, who attends college in the area, and when I told her about the conference, she asked whether I had gotten paid. When I told her that I had not only not gotten paid, but that I had to fund my own trip there, she asked me why I had done this. I thought for a minute and told her it was for the people.

I love going to good conferences and I especially love being a panelist. Being a speaker is tough because it requires so much preparation. Being a panelist is relatively easy. You share the stage with a bunch of hugely qualified people and simply by being up there with them, at least some proportion of the audience believes you actually belong up there. The other great thing about being on a panel is that when someone else says something brilliant (as someone else almost invariably does), you just nod along as though it had been your idea all along.

But what's really great about conferences (at least for me) is being able to spend a whole day with people doing things similar to what I am doing or related. The learning can be incredible and it was.

Scott Matlock, Morgan Stanley's Chairman of Asia Mergers and Acquisitions, was the first person I heard speak at the conference and I have to confess I got there late for that. Grossly summarizing what I heard, he talked about how India is right now easier for mergers than China and how if you are just graduating from business school, China is THE place to be.

I then was on a panel with Jose Davila, Vice President of Field Human Resources at The Gap, Dave Sessions, Vice President of Global eCommerce at Walmart International, and Rand Han, Strategy Director for Bloodyamazing. I had previously communicated with Rand online so it was nice to meet him in person. Paul Tiffany, a Senior Lecturer at the Haas School of Business and a Director of Paul Tiffany & Associates, was our deft facilitator. The audience questions were excellent and I felt that the panel was very well balanced in that it had someone from a big chain store, someone doing eCommerce from a massive retailer, an owner of a Shanghai based boutique creative agency, and a lawyer. As would be expected at a top school like Haas, the questions were uniformly thoughtful.

After my panel concluded, I spoke with a Stanford MBA student who filled me in on the animation market in China, a recent Berkeley graduate who wanted to know if her liking China Law Blog meant she would like practicing law. I told her I had never been asked that question but answered it by pointing out that liking the law and liking the practice of law are very different. I also spoke with a consultant who helps tech companies go into China and India. We talked about some of the similar issues we face with tech companies and then we agreed that they are the toughest clients with whom to work because they so often tend to think that their methods necessarily work everywhere in the world. They are wrong.

I then attended an absolutely excellent panel discussion on technology, consisting of Dipchand Nishar, a LinkedIn Vice President, my friend Elliot Ng, the founder of VentureSprout and CNreviews, Tony C. Luh, Managing Director of DFJ DragonFund, and Ratnesh Sharma, Director of Global Product Management and Marketing for Citrix Systems. David Reimer formerly a Yahoo! VP and now an Executive in Residence at Haas School of Business, did the moderating. There were four big takeaways for me from this session:

--The Google v. China throw-down has been blown completely out of proportion. One of the panelists said that it has had absolutely no impact on other internet companies. Co-blogger Steve Dickinson told me that two Western reporters sought to interview him on how foreign companies were leaving China because of it. Steve told them that he is not aware of a single company leaving China because of it and that none of our clients have even once brought it up. It may be important politically but it is irrelevant for nearly all foreign businesses in China.

-- One of the panelists commented that places like China and India are no longer desperate for Western talent and so Westerners need to bring "more than an ability to quote Clint Eastwood."

-- One of the panelists commented that he thinks Vietnam is the best place in Asia right now for high tech. I spoke with him afterwords on why I tended to agree. His view is that it is simply easier to "get things done" in Vietnam than in China or India.

-- There is a shortage of project managers in virtually every country in the world.

I then had a fascinating conversation with a leadership coach, born in the United States, but whose parents are from India. This person was talking about how so many Indians and Chinese in the United States are of the view that they are being held back from job promotions because of their nationality, but this leadership coach believes it is because they don't fully understand how to operate in the United States. He told me that the people he works with expect to be promoted because of their high grades and their degrees, whereas that is not how it typically works in the United States. Reminded me of a conversation I recently had with a good friend of mine who is an executive at one of Korea's largest companies. This friend of mine, a Korean national, told me how frustrating it is for him that people in his company get promoted simply because they went to one of Korea's best colleges. There is an assumption that if they went to Seoul National, they must be good.

This leadership coach told me that his charges oftentimes never socialize with those not from their own country and that this can be harmful for them. I told him of how so many of the foreign law students at the University of Washington law school go to school there, but never really do much other than study and then return to their home countries, having learned a bit of law but nothing else. I said that American law firms generally do not want that sort of lawyer because they tend to be horrible at relating to American clients. In other words, being able to quote Clint Eastwood may not help you in Asia, but it probably will help you over here.

I then spent a long time talking with a value investor who was seeking China stock tips from me. I told him that I had (unfortunately) never invested in a China stock because I had seen to much of Chinese accounting to trust the numbers. But he kept pressing and I finally said that I liked the hotel company, Jinjiang International Holdings, and since it would be difficult to falsely account for the number of hotels, it would likely be a fairly conservative investment.

I also got to talk a bit with people I already knew before I went down there, including Sage Brennan (Organizer at TEDx Shanghai, Founder and Organizer at ChinaMeme, Founder at Hot Pot Press, Founder and Organizer at MobileMonday Shanghai, and vintner extraordinaire), Renee Hartmann, founder and CFO of eno, and Elliot Ng, founder of Venture Sprout.

All and all it was a most enjoyable trip. The Bay Area sure does have a lot of nice people....

Click here and here for a couple blog posts on the conference from Elle Zhang, who has me down as a "veteran marketer" at H&M (the clothing store), not as an attorney at H&M, the law firm. Oh well.

Would love to hear comments from others who attended.

US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will be leading a clean energy business development mission to China from May 15 to May 21 (h/t AmCham China News). According to the Department of Commerce's website regarding this trip, the cost will be as follows:

After a company has been selected to participate on the mission, a payment to the Department of Commerce in the form of a participation fee is required.

Large Companies Principal Participant fee: $10,000.00

Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Principal Participant fee: $8,500.00

Additional firm representative (both Large companies & SMEs): $3,300.00

Expenses for travel, lodging, most meals, and incidentals will be the responsibility of each mission participant.

You have until February 26, 2010, to apply for the trip. Click here for more information.

Participation in the China portion of the trip is not dependent on participation in the Indonesia portion.

The Department of Commerce sees China greentech as a great opportunity for US businesses:

China represents a great opportunity for U.S. companies in the sectors of clean energy, energy efficiency, electric energy storage, and distribution and transmission.

In response to rapid economic growth and an increasing demand for energy, the central government has made clean energy and energy efficiency strategic priorities.
The 11th Five-Year Plan (2005-2010), has set targets to reduce energy intensity per unit of GDP by 20% as well as reduce emissions for major pollutants, such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxides, by 10%.
This focus on renewable energy, energy efficiency and improved electricity infrastructure creates tremendous opportunities for U.S. companies.
U.S. companies have the chance to launch or increase their current sales in China by joining Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke as he leads a delegation of U.S. businesses on the China Energy Business Development Mission May 15-21, 2010.

The purpose of this mission is to promote US companies:

This Mission is designed to promote U.S. companies with clear potential in the clean energy, energy efficiency, and electric energy storage and transmission and distribution sectors. Mission participants will benefit from customized on-site services and opportunities, including:

-- Individual company pre-screened business appointments with potential buyers, agents/distributors and partners;
-- Latest information on market access and business opportunities; and
-- Opportunities to meet with senior government officials and industry decision-makers.

According to the Commerce Department, this mission makes sense for "U.S. companies with clear potential for business in energy-related markets in China," including the following:

-- U.S. companies already doing business in China as well as experienced exporters seeking to entry to the Chinese market; -- U.S. companies involved in major project procurement in China; -- U.S. companies interested in addressing obstacles to trade in these markets, including transparency, rule of law, financial reform and intellectual property rights protection.

Clients and others I know who have gone on trips like these tend to be evenly divided between those who swear by them and those who view them as a waste of time. I am not sure if this division is due more to the quality of trip itself or to the fit between the company and the trip.

Would love to hear from anyone who has been on a US government sponsored trade mission. What do you think?

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Ronald Reagan

And though the word count varies by language, the idea remains the same.

Beginning in November, China will be undertaking its most comprehensive census ever. And this time, it will include expats/foreigners. I have already received three emails asking me what this is going to mean for those in China illegally and my response is that I do not know, but that it cannot be good. Though the questioning will be to calculate who is in China, I do not have any confidence the information recorded will not also be used for other purposes, including, potentially, removing those in the country illegally. Shanghaiist expresses similar concerns.

We will update if and when we learn more.

In less than 10 hours, voting for the American Bar Association's best blawgs will be over. We need your vote.

The ABA (American Bar Association) Journal editors once again have chosen us as one of the top 100 law blogs and given the final decision on best blog in each category out to the public. We have won this competition every year, thanks in large measure to you, dear readers, and we so so much want to win it again this year.

So please go here and register your email address and then go here and vote China Law Blog. Annd if you have a blog or any other forum and you think we are worthy, please let the world know. Before the site switched the vote numbers to question marks, we were holding a slim lead. Your vote NOW ought to be just enough to win it for us. So please vote. Now. Thanks.

Oh, and while I am at it, I might as well also state how happy I am with the quick progress of The China Law Blog Group on Linkedin. We opened it up on December 6, 2009, and in about three weeks we are already close to hitting 400 members. Please check that out also, here, and consider joining. The more members/contributors, the better the group will be.

UPDATE: If you 1) vote and 2) leave a comment saying you voted, I will do my utmost to mention you on-air when I co-host Good Morning America with Bianna Golodryga.

Well not the blog itself, I guess, but me. I am heading to Jacksonville, FL, on October 27 to meet with a client and then the next day heading to Miami to speak at the American Bar Association's (ABA) International Law Section Annual Conference. I will be kickin it on South Beach. If you are going to be there, shoot me a line. I return on the 30th.

On September 24, 2009, I will be speaking on China labor law issues at Seminar International's Hiring in Asia Seminar in Seattle. I will be sharing the podium with Dave Parker, CEO of 9spaces, a leading China-focused human resources research and services company. Together we will be discussing hiring and retention in the Software Engineering, Manufacturing Services, and Shipping industries. Dave will focus on the business side and I will cover the legal side.

In addition to our talk on China, Chris Gootherts, Microsoft's Staffing Manager for China and Thailand will be presenting with Darryl N. Johnson, the Former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, on "Choosing the Right Country and the Right Services: Recruiting West to East." Chandrakiran Malarapa of Prithvi Information Solutions, Shaalu Mehra of Perkins Coie LLP, and Madhu T. Rao, an Associate Professorat Seattle University's Albers School of Business, will all be talking on Hiring in India. Davis Bae, immigration lawyer extraordinaire with the Bae Law Group and Craig Chelius, Executive Vice President of Protelus Corporation will talk on "Cautions and Advantages to Hiring in Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand."

This is shaping up to be a great seminar and if you want to attend, click here to register.

My friend Jeremy Gordon, over at China Business Blog, is going to be speaking at a London seminar on "what is happening in China and what businesses can expect." He is going to be part of three part series, the first of which is going to focus on how what UK companies should be doing in reaction to China's Stimulus Package:

The Chinese government has announced a RMB 4 trillion stimulus package. What is this stimulus package? How much of it is ‘real’ money? How is it being spent? Which Chinese companies are most likely to benefit? Last but not least, what are the implications and opportunities for foreign businesses and financial investors?

Speakers to include:

Jeremy Gordon, UKTI: Business Specialist for China, with special focus on the China Stimulus Package and the opportunities for UK businesses

Gareth Leather, Economist Intelligence Unit: Senior Editor/Economist: China/Asia region specialist; regular TV and radio contributor on China affairs including BBC, CNN and CNBC

Benjamin Schmittzehe, Schmittzehe & Partners: CEO

Chair: Dr Kerry Brown, Chatham House: Senior Fellow and Author“

China Law Blog's own Steve Dickinson and Bill Dodson of the This is China Blog will be sharing the stage at the upcoming Benulux Chamber of Commerce (BenCham) workshop. The workshop is being put on "in cooperation with SwissCham and The JLJ Group" at the Westin Bund in Shanghai on March 31.

Steve, who spends the majority of his time in Qingdao, Shandong Province, will be speaking on the benefits of Qingdao as a location for Western investment. Bill Dodson, who bases himself out of Suzhou, will be speaking on Ningbo.

Go here for more information and to sign up.

What a great excuse for a party!

On February 28, from 9 pm until 11:30 pm at M1NT Shanghai The Chinese Business Network and Symbio will be putting on "an official pre-SXSW cocktail...to highlight China's tech sector presence at SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, TX in March."

This year at SXSW, beginning at 2pm on March 16th (in Room 8.... what a lucky number!) there will be a China panel entitled, "International Business in China for Fun and Profit." I will be on that panel, along with the following:

* Christine Lu - Founder, The China Business Network
* Andrew Lih - Author, Wikipedia Revolution
* Sage Brennan - Co-Founder, Mobile Monday Shanghai

Unfortunately, I will be the only panelist not at the event, as I previously committed to a China trip in late March.

The party is limited to the first 150 who sign up. Go here to sign up and for further information.

For only 200 RMB, you will be able to partake of the following:

* An opportunity to connect and network with key influencers, tech entrepreneurs and investors in China's tech sector.
* Free flow Moet & Chandon Champagne from 9pm - 10pm
* A selection of hot canapes prepared by M1NT's executive chef
* Each attendee will receive a complimentary two month Boingo Wi-Fi laptop & mobile phone account valued at $133.
* A chance to win 1 of 2 SXSW gold badges valued at $695/each
* Profession film crew by House Films will be on hand to conduct interviews for a reel that will be shown during the China panel at SXSW in March and syndicated on The China Business Show, The China Business Network and Current.com
* Live Tweeted via hashtag #sxswshanghai
* A % of proceeds will benefit Jet Li One Foundation
* Special Guest, Andrew Lih, author of Wikipedia Revolution
* Special Guest, Kaiser Kuo, lead guitarist, Chunqiu and China tech influencer and China tech blogger.
* Special Guest, Jacob Hsu, CEO of The Symbio Group

Be there or be square.

On January 13, from 2:00 pm until 6:00 pm, The China Economic Review will be putting on a seminar/forum, entitled, "Foreign Direct Investment in China: Optimizing FDI strategy in the current economic climate."

Do NOT miss it.

China Economic Review describes it as follows:

Foreign Direct Investment has always been a major contributor to China’s economic development, but it’s fallen for the first time. What will be the impact of the global economic downturn on China’s FDI inflows in 2009? Will China’s efforts to stimulate domestic demand be effective in attracting more investment? How will you improve your return on investment in the new economic climate?

China Economic Review has invited leading experts to talk about issues and solutions from the unique perspective of investment in mainland China. This half-day interactive and case study-oriented conference will provide valuable knowledge and practical advice on how to optimize your FDI strategy and increase returns on investment in China.

For more on this event and to register, go here.

The third annual Global Chinese Financial Forum will be taking place at the Dalian Expo Center in Dalian, China, from October 30 to November 1. This year’s conference will be co-hosted by ChineseWorldNet (out of Vancouver, Canada) and by the Dalian government and it will again focus on the financial side of investing in China and on Chinese companies securing equity financing from overseas. This year's conference will also have speakers on what it takes for Chinese companies to go international. Go here for the long list of excellent speakers, including CLB's own Steve Dickinson, who will be speaking at 3:00 pm on October 31 regarding the legal impediments Chinese companies face in seeking to go overseas. Steve will be speaking in Chinese, but there will be a simultaneous translation into English. Immediately following this talk, Steve will moderate a session on "Positioning Your [Chinese] Company for a U.S Capital Expansion, in English.

China Law Blog's own Steve Dickinson will be the Keynote speaker at the China Economic Review Breakfast Series on Friday, September 26, at the JW Marriott Hotel at Tomorrow Square. Steve's talk will begin at 8:40 am, but the breakfast itself starts at 7:30 am.

CER describes this event as follows:

Following the sold out China Economic Review Breakfast with Andy Xie, we have our next event coming up on September 26th, this time featuring guest speaker Steve Dickinson, Partner and China Manager of Harris Moure PLLC.

As a renowned lawyer and long term China resident, Steve Dickinson is particularly knowledgeable on the legal and economic landscape of China. He is the author of the popular China Law Blog. Steven was named as one of Washington State's "5 Most Amazing Attorneys for 2005" by Washington CEO magazine and has published many articles on China in prestigious law journals, including Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. Steve was the first attorney invited to China by an independent Bar Association and lectured (in Chinese) to Shanghai Bar Association on United States law from 1996 to 1998.

China’s growth will inevitably slow and Steve Dickinson believes that China’s flattening growth curve will not follow the straight line of the optimists nor the parabolic crash of the pessimists. Join Steve as he discusses the reasons for the slowdown and his theories on the growth curve. Graham Earnshaw, editor-in-chief of Xinhua Finance, will also join in the discussion.

This follows the first three successful breakfast events in the series from June to August at which China experts James Kynge, Andy Rothman and Andy Xie spoke of their concerns about inflation and restructuring. This fourth breakfast once again offers you an opportunity to gain insights into China's fast-shifting economic scene, keep up to date and network with other key people in the China business community.

Tickets are only RMB 300 for individuals and RMB 2000 for a corporate table of 8.

Go here for all the particulars on the event and go here to sign up for it online.

This one from Steve Kelley, consistently excellent sportswriter for the Seattle Times, in an article entitled, "Usain Bolt electrifies Beijing, winning the 200 in a world-record time":

If you're old enough to remember the first time you saw Muhammad Ali, the first time you saw Roberto Clemente, the first time you saw Magic Johnson, watching Bolt has that same never-seen-it-before feeling.

James Fallows telling us not to worry about the plethora of "I love China" decals we are seeing on so many Chinese people's faces:

History is full of examples of "rising national powers" getting the big head, feeling arrogant, and doing dangerous things. That's not the main feeling I get here. It's negative Chinese nationalism, like what appeared after the protests over the Olympic torch relay in April, that we should worry about. So a confident China is to be congratulated; a victimized-feeling China is the one to be feared.

Qingdao Olympics Report
Week Two
August 18, 2008

By: Steve Dickinson
From: Qingdao, China

We are heading into week two of the Olympic Sailing Events here in Qingdao. It is time for a short report.

In order to host the Olympic sailing events, Qingdao built a modern sailing center right in the heart of the central business district. This modern facility will be converted into a sailing school and public park after the Olympic sailing events are concluded. You can find an introduction to the sailing center here. I have an apartment on Dong Hai West Road in Qingdao, just one block from the entrance to the sailing center. So my neighbors and I have been in the middle of the preparations for the event.

The primary concern of the Qingdao Olympic committee has been to ensure a smoothly functioning event. Olympic sailing is quite complex, involving numerous races on multiple courses with many different types of vessels. You can get an idea of the complexity by looking at the race schedule here. As expected, light winds have been a problem, leading to the cancellation of a number of races in the early days. The situation changed dramatically on Sunday when a major storm moved in bringing 20 km winds and high surf.

The downside of the concern for things to run smoothly is that the events have been very unfriendly for spectators. The sailing center is basically sealed off from the city. Those inside stay inside and the public stays out. There is no signage at all indicating how or where a spectator should enter the event. Once inside the sailing center, the spectator will of course ask: how do I enter the viewing enter for the event. The incredible answer is: we don’t sell those tickets here. You have to buy a ticket in town at a post office. Question: well, where is the nearest local post office. Answer: We don’t know. All this is done in Chinese. There is not one English language sign that explains how to actually get a ticket to see the sailing event.
The area immediately outside the sailing center is one of Qingdao’s most popular nightlife destinations. The great fear of the Qingdao government is that some foreign visitor will go to a bar or club in this area and cause some sort of “problem.” To combat this, at least 4 policemen are stationed on every street corner in this district and at least 4 more policemen are stationed in each restaurant, nightclub or bar. These folks are not there to protect the foreign visitors. Quite the opposite. They are there to make sure the foreign visitors don’t make “trouble” for China.

All of this is typical of China as it painfully becomes a modern country. China is good with hardware (buildings and trains) but not so good with software (people). The Olympic facility was built on time and within budget. It is beautifully constructed and works as planned. Considering the number of small boats moving in and out of the water, this has been a major achievement. When the event is completed, the center will be made into a public park, opening another stretch of waterfront to public access. Qingdao has worked hard to ensure that the entire coastline within the city is open to the public. The Olympic Sailing Center opens up the last closed stretch of waterfront, which will greatly benefit the public.

On the other hand, the intense fear of foreigners and the problems they might bring has resulted in a lack of foreign visitors to Qingdao in connection with the event. Spectators for the events seem to be almost exclusively from within China. In hotels and other public places near the sailing center, there are virtually no foreign tourists. The spectator area for the events is also almost exclusively occupied by Chinese tourists. In fact, it appears there are actually less foreign tourists in Qingdao during this Olympic period than is typical for a summer in Qingdao. It is hard to know exactly why this is so, but the intense security and the limits on visas for foreigners seem to have had an impact. My hope that the Olympics in Qingdao would be a chance to introduce Qingdao to foreign travelers has not been realized. Qingdao remains a difficult city for travelers who do not speak Chinese and the Olympic organizers did virtually nothing to make things better. In fact, the heightened security has made it even more difficult to get around town than usual. For the foreigners who actually made it to Qingdao, who would want to return to a place where your dancing companion in the local night club is a 50 year old policeman?

On the other hand, the event has served to introduce the sport of sailing to the Chinese public. The Qingdao television stations have extensively broadcast the event. In addition to broadcasting the events and results, the stations have devoted much effort in explaining the techniques and rules of international sailing. For the vast majority of Chinese spectators, this has been their first exposure to small boat sailing. Since the events have gone very well, the impression has been positive. After the events, a major portion of the sailing center will become a sailing school. It is a goal of this school to focus much of its effort on sailing lessons for children. All of this will have the positive goal of introducing the Chinese to water sports and ocean recreation. We will wait to see if the Qingdao locals decide they want to share all these nice things with foreign visitors.

Strafford Publications, which usually gets pretty good people for its online law seminars, is putting on one entitled, "China's New Business Income Tax: Shielding Non-China Income From the Expansive Enterprise Income Tax." (h/t to AsiaBizBlog) The seminar will take place on August 7 from 1 pm to 2:40 pm, EST. Stafford describes its seminar as follows:

As of Jan. 1, 2008, China enacted a 25% enterprise income tax, under which China has considerable flexibility to bring a foreign company's worldwide income into its tax base. Associated rules and circulars could negate U.S. companies' assumptions that its income is safe from Chinese tax.

Meanwhile, the IRS has proposed much-awaited revisions to its contract manufacturing regs, which are a leading vehicle for American businesses entering the Chinese marketplace. Tax counsel must prepare to leverage the new exceptions and other key changes.

Listen and participate from your telephone as our panel of experienced tax advisors bottom-lines these and other recent developments affecting tax on doing business in China, helping you prepare to adjust your tax planning and transfer pricing strategies.

The panel includes:

Peng Tao, Of Counsel, DLA Piper, New York. His practice focuses on tax and transfer pricing issues in China. He formerly worked in the People's Republic of China's Bureau of Legislative Affairs for five years and for two other international law firms.

Alan Granwell, Partner, DLA Piper, Washington, D.C. He has been practicing in international taxation, and more specifically tax planning and controversies, for more than 35 years. He formerly was an international tax counsel and director of the Treasury Department's Office of International Tax Affairs.

Melanie Chen, Managing Director for China Region Group, UHY Advisors, New York. She specializes in cross-border transactions in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan and advises U.S. companies on complex tax issues in the region. Previously, she worked for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in Shanghai and for a law firm in Beijing.

The panel will give you the benefit of their experience and analysis on these and other top tax priorities:

-- Understanding crucial aspects of the enterprise income tax and the associated rules and circulars, so that your company can protect its income from taxation to the maximum possible.

-- Identifying tax opportunities and pitfalls in the Chinese marketplace offered by the proposed U.S. contract manufacturing regs.

-- Planning tax strategies to deal with anti-avoidance provisions and transfer pricing guidance from China.

I have noticed a fairly steep increase in clients seeking referrals from my firm (we do not handle tax matters) for their international tax matters and I have no doubt it is due in large part to both China and the US getting tightening up their handling of international businesses. This Economic Observer article, "Tax Dilemma for China's Ministry of Finance," supports my experiences. I am not a big fan of either taxes or the study of them, but I suspect this seminar will be very worthwhile.

Managing Intellectual Property Magazine will, on June 19 at noon Eastern time (US) be putting on a Free Webinar on Anti-Counterfeiting Strategies, entitled "Global Anti-Counterfeiting Strategies: Tackling Trans-shipment Issues Using Customs and Other Enforcement Techniques."

The scheduled speakers are:

-- James Nurton, Editor of Managing IP

-- Paul Rawlinson and Andy Leck of Baker & McKenzie.

-- Toe Su Aung, General Counsel at BATMark Limited

Bruce Longbottom, Associate General Counsel, Trademarks, Copyrights & Information Technology atEli Lilly and Company

The forum will address IP protection and enforcement issues and will include a Q&A session.

To read more or to sign up, go here.

There is a good mix of speakers and this webinar will obviously have relevance to many who do business in China. It being free is icing on the cake.

I will be speaking today at an International Debt Collection conference being put on jointly by the International Law Section and the Remedies Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. I will be joined on the podium by Hon. Samuel Bufford [pdf], US Bankruptcy Court, Constance Kim, Connon Wood Scheidemantle LLP, Lawrence Peitzman, Peitzman Weg & Kempinsky LLP. For more information, go here.

Should be fun.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell

I was going to write a brilliant post on Sharon Stone's attributing the Sichuan earthquake to "possible" karma, but since David Wolf over at Silicon Hutong beat me to it in his post entitled, "A Perspective on 'Karma,'" I hereby fully incorporate by reference all that David said, as though fully set forth herein.

Having done that, however, I cannot resist pilfering word for word, the best part of David's post, dealing with how best to handle Ms. Stone's comments:

There are, therefore, two correct responses to this situation:

1. Pointedly ignore Ms. Stone and others like her; or

2. Set out to clarify the record.

I would never defend Ms. Stone and what she said. Personally, I find every word of her diatribe, the setting, and the political convictions that underlie it, utterly detestable.

But by attacking her personally we miss an opportunity to debate the point.

And the debate is what is important. Not the source of the opinion that begets it.

At the same time, go ahead and label me naive, but I find it hard to believe that blind hatred of the Chinese people has reached such a fever pitch in Hollywood that Ms. Stone should have felt emboldened to attribute widespread death, injury and homelessness (including, no doubt, to Tibetans) as some sort of comeuppance? I prefer to think Ms. Stone's views on this are in the extreme minority, even in Hollywood. For other ways to treat Ms. Stone, check out this Daniel Drezner post entitled, "The Blog Post That Writes Itself."

Just got an email that combines two of my favorite things: doing good and pumping up my United Airlines mileage plus account. The email is from United Airlines and it says the following:

Mileage Plus customers who donate $50USD or more will receive 500 miles as a one-time bonus. The United Airlines Foundation will support customers' donations with up to 5 million miles for this bonus mile offer. In order to receive the miles, email your electronic American Red Cross receipt to ChinaRelief-Miles@united.com.

It's a can of corn.

Shanghaiist just posted on how you can help the victims of China's recent earthquake. Here's the info, straight from Shanghaiist:

For those who are looking to contribute to current aid efforts underway, you can now donate money to the Red Cross Society of China which has formed a disaster relief working group to be dispatched to the earthquake-stricken Wenchuan County in Sichuan.

They have also published an emergency relief hotline, along with bank account information to receive donations to assist their cause:

Account name: Red Cross Society of China
开户单位：中国红十字会总会

For those who want to donate in RMB: you can send money to the RMB account at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China branch below:
人民币开户行: 中国工商银行 北京分行东四南支行
人民币账号: 0200001009014413252

For those who want to donate in foreign currency, you can send money to the foreign currency account at the CITIC Bank branch below:
外币开户行：中信银行酒仙桥支行
外币账号: 7112111482600000209

Hotline: (8610) 65139999
Online donations: Red Cross Society of China website: www.redcross.org.cn
Click the tab for online donations

We will add others to this as more becomes known.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who have provided additional methods for contributing. CLB has no real knowledge regarding any of these charities nor any real expertise at determining which of these charities make the most sense or which is "the best." In other words, you all are on your own for that.

On Monday, April 28, 2008, The Asia Society is putting on a China speaking event, entitled, "Product Safety: Understanding the 'Made in China' Brand" This will be from 6:30 pm until 8:00 pm at the Asia Society and Museum, 8th Floor, 725 Park Avenue, New York City.

The event is described as follows:

As China prepares for its August 2008 Olympics 'coming out party,' lingering concerns over the safety of the 'Made in China' brand remain. Even as China publicizes efforts to ensure product safety and reassure consumers, new incidents and 'Not Made in China' brands have cropped up. In many product safety cases, there is no easy target at whom to point a blaming finger. Laxity of government supervision in China plays a role, as do conditions in China's factory and supply chain systems. Domestic and foreign companies have learned that they must proactively involve themselves in sourcing chains, and many companies are rapidly changing their approaches. This program, the second in Asia Society's series of programs looking at the effects of the Olympics on China, will analyze all of these issues while providing future prospects and advice for companies, governments, and consumers alike.

The speakers will be:

Alexandra Harney, the South China Correspondent for the Financial Times and author of the book, The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage.

Paul Midler, Founder and President of China Advantage and the book, Poorly Made in China.

Alan H. Schoem, Senior Vice President, Global Product Risk Practice, Marsh.

Daniel Rosen, a Principal at China Strategic Advisory, will moderate.

I am plugging this event because I know two of the three speakers and I know them to be extremely knowledgeable regarding China product production. Paul Midler coined the by now familiar phrase, "quality fade" to describe the deterioration in product quality that so often occurs with product made in China. Paul and I have had many great discussions (both live and online) as to what causes the fade, what can be done to help prevent it, and whether it is inevitable and I can unequivocally state that Paul knows China manufacturing. I just recently finished reading Ms. Harney's book, The China Price, and I will review it here shortly. The book is an inside look at Chinese manufacturing and it leaves absolutely no doubt that Ms. Harney knows whereof she speaks on this topic.

I am certain this will be a great event and I would love to hear about this event from anyone who goes.

On May 9, 2008, The Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University (NYU) will be putting on what looks to be an excellent seminar on China's new labor contract law. The seminar will take place in Pollack Colloquium, Ninth Floor, Furman Hall, NYU School of Law, 245 Sullivan Street. (h/t to the Workplace Prof Blog)

Professor Samuel Estreicher, NYU Law, and Michael J. Gray, from Jones Day's Chicago office will be the co-chairs.

Professor Benjamin Liebman from Columbia Law School will speak on "Doing Business in China: A Historical Perspective." He will be followed by the following panel discussing "The New China Labor and Employment Law: A Practical Perspective:"

Moderator: Terry Sharp, Home Depot

Panelists: Mark Nordstrom, GE
Martin Schmelkin, Goldman Sachs
Dale Skivington, Kodak
Henry Valdez, McDonald's Corporation

Next will be another panel discussion, this one, on "Dealing with Unions in China : the U.S. Model, the European Model, or a New Paradigm?" with the following panelists:

Moderator: Prof. Samuel Estreicher, NYU Law

Panelists: Earl Brown, Solidarity Center
Ed Potter, Coca-Cola
Dale Skivington, Kodak
Henry Valdez, McDonald's Corporation

China Law éminence grise Professor Jerome Cohen, of NYU Law, will be the luncheon speaker

The next session will be on "The Role of Counsel in Assisting Multinational Companies in China" and will consist of the following:

Moderator: Mark Dichter, Morgan Lewis Philadelphia

Panelists: Joseph Chan, Pillsbury Winthrop Shanghai
Darren Gardner, Seyfarth Shaw S.F.
Winston Zhao, Jones Day Shanghai

The seminar will conclude with a roundtable on "Recent Issues Affecting Multinational Companies Doing Business in China : Topics include the Beijing Olympics, the new ADR law (effective May 1) and the protection of confidential information." The panel for this session will be the following:

Moderator: Torrey Whitman, NYU Law

Panelists: Rob Landau, NBC Sports
Ed Potter, Coca-Cola

It does look like it will be a winner.

Go here to register and go here to tell me whether the bottom picture is really Elliott Spitzer. Is it really him?

CLB's own Steve Dickinson will be on CCTV's Dialogue show tonight at 7:30 pm talking about China's new individual income tax laws. We will run another post on this as soon as CCTV puts the show on its website.

Don't miss it!

UPDATE: It will be aired again on CCTV-9 on February 28 at 0:30, 7:30, and 13:00.

Just this second got an email announcing what looks like a very interesting Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Teleconference on Chinese intellectual property, set for tomorrow. For more information and to register, go here.

It will consist of the following two live 90-Minute teleconferences with Interactive Q&A.

Part 1 – Essential Preemptive Steps to Protect IP Rights
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
1:00-2:30 pm Eastern

Part 2 – Strategies for Policing and Enforcing IP Rights
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
1:00-2:30 pm Eastern

It is described as follows:

The increased focus on doing business in China – and its rapidly evolving regulatory landscape for IP – impacts most U.S. companies. In 2006, counterfeit products seized in China accounted for over 80% of all seizures that year.

To protect IP, companies must have an IP strategy for China, whether or not they are currently doing business in China. Before entering the market, advanced planning is crucial because IP rights take time to obtain in China.

How can companies protect their intellectual property rights, whether they are planning to enter the Chinese market, otherwise do business in or with China, or if their products are vulnerable to counterfeiting or other infringement?

Listen and participate from your telephone as our authoritative panel of IP and China business law specialists examines protection of a company's IP rights before entering into business in China and while transacting business in China, including registration of IP, anti-counterfeiting and brand protection strategies, and enforcement practices.

The panel will address the following issues:

What issues must be addressed for registration of IP in China?

What steps can U.S. companies implement to protect their brands against infringement?

What strategies can IP owners employ to combat counterfeiting in China?

What are the best practices for IP enforcement and protection in China?

The faculty consists of the following:

Yitai Hu, of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, in Palo Alto.

Paul D. Jones, of Jones & Co. in Toronto.=

Keith Medansky, of DLA Piper, in Chicago.

Stan Abrams, of DLA Piper, in Beijing, and also of China Hearsay fame.

I can certainly vouch for Stan but I do not know any of the other speakers.

I am scheduled to speak on Monday in Washington DC regarding what companies outsourcing their product manufacturing must do to protect themselves from bad/dangerous China product. The conference is being put on by Lexis/Nexis and based on the people speaking (present company excluded, of course), I am confident it will be a great conference. The website lists the following benefits, among others, from attending:

• Learn how to write arbitration clauses that stand up in China and other foreign countries
• Get the inside story on the current products recalled—who is being sued and who is at risk
• Receive a briefing on how to properly handle a product recall from the media to suppliers
• Examine recent foreign arbitration awards and how to get them enforced
• Find out how lead exposure affects children from a leading toxicologist
• Listen in on a roundtable by counsel doing business in foreign jurisdictions
• Discover how arbitration works in the International Centre for Dispute Resolution in Hong Kong
• Hear from insurance coverage attorneys on issues like business interruption
• Discuss the current regulatory situation and the status of reform efforts

Paul Hinton, NERA Economic Consulting and Bradley Remick, Marshall, Dennehey, Warner Coleman & Goggin will be the chairs.

Lucy Allen, NERA Economic Consulting, and Hillel Parness from Lovells LLP, will start it off discussing the current status of China product issues.

Joseph Guglielmo, Whatley Drake & Kallas, and Katherine Cahill, Marsh USA, Inc., will discuss what to do when a China product is recalled.

Jeannie Perron, Covington & Burling LLP, Francis Citera, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Kenneth Wexler, Wexler Toriseva Wallace LLP, and Mitchell Breit, Whatley Drake & Kallas LLC, will give a litigation update regarding recently recalled China products.

Jack Snyder, Toxicologist, and Michael Filla, Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, will talk about "Lead Exposure in Children and Medical Monitoring."

Brenda Jacobs, Sidley Austin LLP, will speak on the regulatory efforts relating to unsafe products from China.

Thomas Klitgaard, Dillingham & Murphy, LLP, will be speaking on China litigation and arbitration and I will be speaking on setting up your manufacturing in China so as to avoid litigation or arbitration.

Thomas Klitgaard, Dillingham & Murphy, LLP, Baiju Vasani, Crowell & Moring LLP,and Phoebe Wilkinson, Chadbourne & Park LLP, will be speaking on arbitration and other contractual issues relating to China product.

Shelley Leinicke, Wicker, Smith, O’Hara, McCoy & Ford, and Bradley Remick, Marshall, will be speaking on "How to Get the Foreign Supplier Involved in Defending Against Claims of Product Defects."

Marialuisa Gallozzi, Covington & Burling LLP, Joseph Bermudez, Cozen O'Conner, and Brad Murlick, Navigant Consulting, will speak on "Business Interruption and Insurance Coverage" as they relate to China products.

For more on this conference, go here.

CLB's own Steve Dickinson will be a panelist on the very soon upcoming CNbloggercon in Beijing this weekend at the Tsinghua Technology Park Conference Center. Steve will be talking about the legal issues of blogging within China.

Steve's panel (and Steve himself) will be speaking Chinese and most information on the conference is in Chinese. This is a huge annual event (biggest such event in China, I believe) and this is the third one, first in Beijing. For more on what other bloggers are saying on the event, click here, here, here, and/or here.

Due to the potentially sensitive nature of the subjects on which Steve and his fellow panelists will be talking (hint, it starts with the letter c), it was nip and tuck right up to the last minute as to whether that panel would go on at all. Hence, our extremely late notice.

I am hoping someone will be live blogging in English on this event or at least reporting back on it fairly regularly. If someone finds such postings, please let us know.

UPDATE: Steve just emailed me from his Blackberry: "Last session tomorrow. Legal is sensitive so not really advertised." Tomorrow means Sunday, November 4, China time. Don't anyone dare miss it.

SECOND UPDATE: Steve's session will be at 5:20 pm.

If it is October, it must be time again for Ambassador Clark T. Randt Jr's Roundtable Discussion on Intellectual Property Rights in China. This year's event will take place at the Grand Hyatt Beijing, starting on the evening of October 23 and running through October 24. Go here to register and for more information. Hat tip to Asia Business Intelligence Blog for coming up with this one. What email list is he on that he is always beating me to the punch on government events on China IP?

The draft agenda reveals that Stephan Lang of the U.S Consulate in Guangzhou will be the Master of Cermonies, U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt, Jr., will be giving the opening remarks, and Jon Dudas Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, will be giving the Keynote.

The first panel will be a "China-Based Industry Overview and Directions Embassy Should Take on IPR (Part I)." It will be moderated by Barry Friedman, from the U.S. Commercial Service and will have on the panel the following people on the panel:

Jeremie Waterman, from AmCham
Jack Chang, from the Quality Brands Protection Committee
Jeffrey Schultz, from the R&D-based Pharmaceutical Association in China

There will then be another panel on the same issues, moderated by Chris Adams from USTR and with the following people:

Greg Shea (whom I know and can vouch for as both knowing his stuff and knowing how to convey it in a very interesting way) from the U.S. Information Technology Office.
Eric Smith, from the Copyright Industry Overview (IIPA)

The third panel is entitled "Trends in Intellectual Property Enforcement And Suggestions For USG Support or Involvement." Chris Israel, International IP Enforcement Coordinator will be moderating and the topics to be covered will include,

· Fake and Shoddy/Counterfeit Goods and IPR

· Internet and its Threat to U.S. Rights Holders

· Civil Enforcement and Pharmaceutical Industry Challenges

· Counterfeit Agricultural Products (Crop Life)

This panel will include Elizabeth Lam and George Fuller

Conrad Wong from the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou will be the Master of Ceremonies for the afternoon session.

The next panel will be on "Illustrative Cases - Ways to Protect and Enforce IP in China" and will be modereated by Lisa Rigoli, of the Trade Facilitation Office. The topics for this panel will likely include the following:

· Combating International IPR Crime: Experience of Nike – Bill Wei

· Trade Fair Infringements (TBD)

· Fake Markets and Landlord Liability (TBD)

· Company Name Infringements (TBD)

The fourth panel will be on "IPR Directions for the Future - Legislation and National IP Strategies and U.S. Government Support" and will start out with a speech by John Sullivan, General Counsel, U.S. Department of Commerce, on “Commercial Rule of Law Reform and Intellectual Property Advancement in China.” Mark Cohen (who I have heard speak and who is really good) will moderate with the following panelists on the following issues:

· Patent Law Reform (QBPC, IPO) (Sam Li, Rohm and Haas)

· Trademark Law Reform (INTA or QBPC)

· Copyright Law Reform (Yun Xuan, GE Universal)

· Criminal Law Reform (Joe Simone/IACC)

· Trade Secret Law/ Unfair Competition Law (TBC)

· Reform of China’s Civil Process (TBC)

The fifth panel will be on "China’s Industrial and Intellectual Property Policy: How this Affects U.S. Companies and How Should the Embassy Respond?" It will be moderated by Eric Madison of the Economics Section and have the following panelists and issues:

· Antitrust and Standards: Nate Bush, O’Melveney & Meyers

· Tech Transfer Policy: Dr. Thomas Pattloch, European Commission

· Market Access and IPR Protection: TBC

The last panel entitled, "The View from Washington: IP Policy and the Role of Rights Holders" will be moderated by Bob Poole of the USCBC and will have the following panelists and topics:

· WTO/JCCT and Other Trade-Related Activities: USTR - Stan McCoy

· Federal Bureau of Investigation: Dep. Asst Director Sean Henry

· Customs Cooperation: Customs and Border Protection (TBC)

· USPTO Engagement: USPTO (Lois Boland or Elaine Wu, TBC)

The conference will conclude with a Q&A and then Mark Cohen will give a summary and conclusions and set forth the "U.S. Embassy’s View of the Year Ahead and Next Steps."

Enough great people and topics to last a week, so one day ought to be quite a ride. I will be in Hong Kong for depositions from October 17 through the 21st so I may just drop over to Beijing for a look.

AmCham Beijing is putting on what looks to be a wildly helpful seminar entitled, "Best Practices in Running a Low-cost IPR Protection Program." It will be from 7:30-10 a.m. at the Beijing American Club located at the China Resources Building, 8 Jianguomen Beidajie in Beijing.

AmCham describes this event as follows:

Protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) is not just a job for companies that patented inventions or make DVDs - any company with a brand name is vulnerable to Chinese competitors who can take advantage of your company's IPR by selling knock-off goods or by providing services under your company's name. Even if you think your brand is safe, how do you ensure that your suppliers or distributors are not substituting fake products for your legitimates?

Operators of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) know that, due to smaller budgets, SMEs are hard pressed to withstand the crippling effects on profit margins that unchecked IPR abuse can have.

However, neither do they have the budget or personnel to employ teams of lawyers and investigators to curtail these IPR abuses. So what to do?

Whether you are currently an SME operator or you have ever considered starting your own company, this AmCham event will provide answers to many of your questions about low-cost strategies to safeguard your intellectual property.

Our all-star panel of IP experts, including Mark Cohen, the Senior IPR Attache at the US Embassy, Jack Chang, the Chairman of the Quality Brands Protection Committee, and Eugene Yu, the Chief China Representative for the Motion Picture Association, will share their tips and best practices on how to employ both clever preventative strategies as well as how to enforce your IP rights on a tight budget.

Registration will be from 7:30-8 a.m., with breakfast, presentations and Q&A from 8-10 a.m.

I like the conference's emphasis on IP protection for SMEs because, in so many ways, budget constraints force SMEs to achieve that protection differently from large companies. Where the large company typically can do whatever it takes to protect its IP, the small company must wisely pick and choose from a long list of options. Though it is impossible to achieve complete protection, I have seen companies achieve excellent protection for very little money and I have seen companies spend more and completely miss the boat. I would expect this conference would help SMEs lean more to the former.

Cost is 100RMB for members, 250RMB for nonmembers. Click here for online enrollment.

The Wall Street Journal Asia and mega law firm, O'Melveny & Myers (with a very strong China presence), are putting on what is looking to be a top level conference on China's financial markets. The conference is set for November 13th in Hong Kong (China's de facto financial capital) at the Hong Kong Grand Hyatt (a great hotel with amazing views!). For registration, click here. The cost is $1000, but there is a 20% discount for Wall Street Journal subscribers and since one can get such a subscription for less than $200, it would certainly make sense to do so. There are also various other discounts, including a 10% early bird discount, but it is not clear whether they are cumulative.

The topics will include the following:

Commercial Banking in China
China and World Capital Markets
China Domestic Capital Markets
Cross-border M&A
China's RMB & Foreign Currency Issues

Click here [pdf] for the agenda.

The following are scheduled to speak:

Howard Chao, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
AB Culvahouse, O'Melveny & Myers LLP
Lawrence Fok, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited
Stephen Green, Standard Chartered Bank
Fred Hu, Goldman Sachs
Nicholas Lardy, The Peterson Institute for International Economics
Stephen G. Pagliuca, Bain Capital
Qi Bin, CSRC
David Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group
Henny Sender, The Wall Street Journal
Jing Ulrich, JPMorgan Securities
Dr. Jonathan Woetzel, McKinsey & Company
Dr. Xu Gang, CITIC Securities
Xu Guang Xun, China NASDAQ International

The depth and breadth of the speakers makes me confident this will be an excellent conference.

I will be appearing on CNBC's Morning Call show on Monday at 8:15 am Pacific Time, 11:15 am Eastern Time. The topic will be whether American companies are responsible for bad product they are getting from China. Regular readers of this blog know my answer will is an emphatic YES.

Morning Call describes itself as follows:

"Morning Call," anchored by Liz Claman from CNBC's global headquarters, offers a clear focus on real-time market coverage at the heart of the trading day. "Morning Call" captures the frenzied moments following the start of the trading day and all of the intense market activity associated with Wall Street's opening moments. It's two full hours of up-to-the minute market news and analysis and debate on the markets, the economy and other business issues that effect your pocketbook.

Don't miss it.

UPDATE: I've been bumped. Something about needing more time to devote to private equity. They tell me I will be rescheduled. Kind of a shame because I am here in Portland, Oregon, chaperoning my daughter's basketball team at the End of the Trail tournament and since all I came with were t-shirts and jeans, I had to run out and buy a suit, shirt and tie to look presentable for the show. It was either that or leave early and return to Seattle. Oh well, Guess I needed an updated look anyway. Oh well.

By Charles Moure

I attended AmCham Shanghai's June 8, 2007, China Trends Conference at the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel.  I was quite impressed by both AmCham and the conference itself.  The large conference room was nearly full.  Brenda Foster, President of AmCham Shanghai, gave the opening remarks and she noted AmCham Shanghai is one of the fastest growing AmChams in Asia. 

Steven Ganster of Technomic Asia gave the first speech.  My firm has worked on a number of matters with Technomic Asia (mostly with Kent Kedl, who is based in Shanghai) and we hold them in very high regard.  Steven gave an excellent speech on how when Chinese and Western companies compete for the same customers, Western companies usually lose.  Chinese companies simply have too many advantages in their relationships, their labor costs arising from their willingness to take a harder line with labor, and their ability to pay lower taxes.  Western companies typically have the advantage in access to finance and in more sophisticated management techniques. 

John Leary, Managing Partner of White & Case's Shanghai office spoke next.  My firm has worked with White & Case on a number of matters in Russia and we have always found them to be absolutely superb lawyers and Mr. Leary certainly did nothing to dispel that view.  His talk was entitled, "Recent Changes and Trends in PRC Law" and yet he managed to keep it light and interesting.  He started off with a good lawyer joke (note to self, use it the next time I speak).  He said he had asked his wife how to keep his presentation short, while still covering so much material.  His wife advised he should keep in mind he would not be able to bill anyone his normal hourly rate while presenting. 

John did a great job briefly highlighting recent trends in China's labor, intellectual property, tax, mergers & acquisitions, real estate, and dispute resolution laws. 

John anticipates China's draft labor law will become law this summer. John talked about how non-compete clauses in employment contracts are getting enforced in China and employers should consider these to prevent employees from taking intellectual property.  He also talked about how employees in China must have written contracts and on how it is difficult to fire them.  Most companies get around this by entering into short term contracts with their employees (maybe for a year or so) and then not renewing the contract if things do not work out.

John then talked about how China is considering changing its requirement that patents arising from research and development done in China must first be filed in China.  John also briefly discussed the Beijing "Silk Market" case where a landlord was found liable for having allowed counterfeit product to be sold in its buildings.   

John talked about how though foreign companies in China have a lower tax rate than Chinese domestic companies, tax compliance by Chinese companies is reputedly less.  John left open the question as to whether the new unified tax law will cause the Chinese government to take tax enforcement against domestic companies more seriously.

In discussing dispute resolution, John promoted using an offshore arbitration clause, preferably Hong Kong.  I asked John about his firm's success rate in getting foreign arbitration awards enforced in the Chinese courts and he said they have had a good success rate in converting those awards into Chinese judgments.  I found this interesting because co-bloggers Dan and Steve are always fighting over whether to include a Chinese arbitration clause (Steve's usual position) or a Hong Kong, Vancouver, or Singapore one (Dan's usual position).   

Unfortunately, I had to leave the conference early to participate in a bankruptcy conference at the Allen John law firm so this was all I got to hear.   

I shall return.

The United States Commerce Department, Office of China Economic Area, will be putting on two webinars this month on intellectual property (IP) in China (h/t to Asia Business Intelligence).  I have listened in on a few of these webinars and they tend to be very good.

The first will be on May 10, from 2:00 p.m. through 3:30 p.m. EST and will be the United States Trade Representative (USTR) "Reports on Local Enforcement of Intellectual Property in China: Special Provincial Review and Special 301 Report."  This report examines the "adequacy and effectiveness of IPR protection and enforcement at the provincial level in China."  These reports are based on "numerous teams of U.S. government officials [having gone] to many provinces across China meeting with local Chinese government officials, conducting site visits to hot spots of pirating and counterfeiting activity and solicited two rounds of public comments."  USTR Chief Negotiator for IP Enforcement Stanford McCoy, and Senior Director for China Amy Celico will be leading this webinar, which will provide "an in-depth discussion of this year-long fact finding mission and the results of this year's Special 301 Report on China."  A copy of the Special 301 report can be found here [pdf].

The second webinar will be on May 17, also from 2:00 p.m. through 3:30 p.m.  This one will be on China's 2007 IPR Action Plan and will be led by China's Counselor for IP Dr. Yang Guohua.  Dr. Guohua will discuss China's "2007 IPR Action plan which documents initiatives planned in 2007 by a number of China's IP related agencies. This year's plan has over 276 measures."  Dr. Guohua's talk "will focus on "the major projects to be completed in this plan and points out areas of interest to foreign rightholders."  An English language version of China's IPR plan can be found here. 

Both events are free.  To register, you must send your contact information to ChinaIPR@mail.doc.gov and registration confirmation and dial-in/log-in instructions will follow.  Only a phone line and a computer with internet are required to participate.

China Law Blog's own Steve Dickinson will be speaking on the "implications of [China's] new Property Law and new Unified Corporate Income Tax Law this Wednesday, April 25th, at 8:30 pm in Shanghai.   Steve has been spending the last few weeks (both of these only just came out and have yet to go into effect) intensely studying China's new Property Law both for a number of our clients involved in real estate development in China and for his upcoming San Francisco talk on this same topic. 

Steve's talk will be at 439 Wu Kang Road, in the Arch (whatever that means) which is near HuaiHai Road.  The nearest subway stop is Hengshan Road Station.  Steve's talk is being put on by SHARE (Sharing Analysis on Regional Economies) a non- profit group that "strives to better understand the complexities of local socio-economic issues through presentations, conferences and projects." 

The event will begin at 8:00 p.m., with Steve presenting at 8:30 p.m., followed by a Q&A session that is expected to go until "approximately" 10:00 p.m.  Questions, call (021) 6466-0807.

The American Conference Institute is hosting a two-day conference on "Real Estate Investments in China," from May 3-4, 2007 at the Mandarin Oriental San Francisco, in San Francisco, California.  Both CLB co-blogger Steve Dickinson and I will be speaking there and I would urge anyone with an interest in Chinese real estate to attend. 

Steve was scheduled to speak on the topic of "Developing a Business Entity in China" for real estate purposes, but with the recent passage of China's new Property Laws, Steve has prevailed upon the conference organizers to have him discuss the new laws.  The changes these new laws will bring to China are potentially huge and, as far as I know, this will be the first seminar in the U.S. at which they will be discussed.

The overall theme is "On-the-Ground-Perspective:  The Real Real Estate Opportunities for Foreign Investors in China" and the following issues will be covered:

• Creative Strategies to Finance Your Real Estate Investment
• An Expert's Perspective on the New REIT Regulations in China
• Non-REIT Opportunities:  US Institutional Investment Vehicles
• Evaluating the Opportunities and Mitigating the Risks when Developing Your Second-Tier City Investment Strategy
• Investments in Chinese Real Estate-Legal Risks that "Due Diligence" Won't Cure
• Exit Strategies--Getting Your Profits Out of China
• Using ADR to Resolve Disputes with Chinese Business Entities

The list of speakers from the legal, real estate and financial worlds (present company excluded) is extremely strong and will include the following people speaking on real estate related issues:

• Graham Earnshaw, Editor-in-Chief, Xinhua Finance News, speaking on "On-the-Ground Perspective:  The Real Real Estate Opportunities for Foreign Investors in China." 
• Dr. Daniel W. Kwong, Chairman, Global Investment & Management Institute, Inc., will be providing the second day key note presentation.
• Marshall P. Horowitz, Attorney with Dreier Stein & Kahan LLP, in Santa Monica, CA, speaking on Developing a Business Entity in China. 
• Dr. Lou Jianbo, Co-Director, Center for Real Estate Law and Associate Professor of Law at Peking University, speaking on China's new REIT regulations. 
• Michael Lam, Associate Director, Asia Pacific Cushman & Wakefield, Inc., speaking on real estate investing in China's second tier cities. 
• Qiang Li, Attorney with L.A. based O'Melveny & Myers LLP, speaking on "Exit Strategies -- Getting Your Profits Out of China" and also on "Creative Strategies to Finance Your Real Estate Investment."
• R.A.D. Morton III, Director, Asian Development Group LLC, speaking on real estate investments in China's second tier cities. 
• Patrick A. Randolph, Jr., Co-Director, Peking University Center for Real Estate Law and Of Counsel with Kansas City based Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, speaking on "Investments in Chinese Real Estate � Legal Risks that �Due Diligence� Won�t Cure."  Fang Shen, also an attorney at Blackwell Sanders, will be speaking on this as well.   
• Stephen A. Roth, Chairman Emeritus at Secured Capital Corp., speaking on "Non-REIT Opportunities: U.S. Institutional Investment Vehicles." 
• Paul L. Silverman, Director & CEO, Asian Development Group LLC, speaking on second tier city real estate.
• Wenjie Sun, Attorney at Lehman, Lee & Xu, speaking on "Developing a Business Entity in China."
• Alice Young, Attorney with Kaye Scholer LLP in New York.

I will be moderating a session on real estate in China's second tier cities, at which R.A.D Morton III, Paul Silverman and Michael Lam will be speaking.  The formal name of our session is "Evaluating the Opportunities and Mitigating the Risks when Developing Your Second-Tier City Investment Strategy." I have been working with these three on the program (with them doing the overwhelming bulk of the work) and I have seen enough to be able to assure you that this will interesting and highly informative session.  All three of these speakers clearly have an on the ground understanding of China's commercial real estate market and I too am very much looking forward to their talks. 

Both Steve (from Shanghai) and I (from Seattle) will be arriving SFO the day before the program and would welcome the opportunity to go out for lunch/dinner/coffee/drinks with our readers at some point while in SFO.  Those interested should please contact me by sending an e-mail to "firm at harrismoure.com." 

See y'all there.

The London School of Economics' China Development Society is putting on a speech by Jeremy Gordon, on Friday, March 2, at 20 Kingsway, room G108, in London, England. Jeremy is the CEO of China Business Services and the force behind the China Business Blog. 

Jeremy will be speaking on the "fundamental re-evaluation by Beijing of the role of foreign investment (and "malicious acquisitions") in China," touching on M&A, taxes, unionization, and corporate social responsibility (CSR).  I both know Jeremy and have worked with him and I can vouch for his truly knowing China and I have no doubt he will give a bloody good speech.  For more information, click here.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (Office of China Economic Area) will be putting on a Webinar on Civil IP Litigation in China (h/t to Chinese Law Prof Blog)  The Webinar will be on February 8, 2007, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., EST.  The Department of Commerce has a history of putting on excellent China programs and they have the added benefit of being completely free. 

The speakers will be James V. Feinerman, Professor and Co-Director, Asian Law and Policy Studies Program at Georgetown University Law Center, Bill Huo, an Attorney with New York mega-firm Kramer Levin, and Elaine Gin, an Attorney-Advisor at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office .  The webinar is described as "a discussion on China�s latest legislative developments, an overview of civil litigation in China and best practices for resolving IP [intellectual property] disputes in China�s civil courts."

For registration information, click here and go to the bottom of the page. 

U.S. public television (PBS) will be airing a four-part documentary beginning on Wednesday, January 10, entitled "China from the Inside" (h/t to TV Squad Blog).   According to the TV Squad Blog, it will delve into both China's history and its current political landscape and will, among other things, examine China's treatment of women, its problems with air and water pollution, religion in China, and the government's slow response to the AIDS epidemic.  The documentary's four parts will consist of the following:

• "Power and the People"
• "Women of the Country"
• "Shifting Nature"
• "Freedom and Justice"

PBS has a website here on the show, but it the site is not fully launching until tomorrow.  The rump website does already boast, however, that "through exceptional access to institutions, government officials, and ordinary people, China from the Inside brings the complexity of contemporary China to the living rooms of Americans."  The website touts that tomorrow's website will "offer a deeper understanding of the political, economic, environmental, and social issues facing China" and will allow its visitors to engage in the following:

• Read projections on China's environmental future and what it will mean
• Learn about China's AIDS epidemic and the Chinese government's slow response to it
• Delve into an interactive map
• View a gallery of women activists
• Join in provocative discussions about China's future
• Find out how much you know with a China versus the United States quiz
• Discover the difficulties of filming in China in an "off camera" interview with the filmmaker
• Download unique, standards-based content for grades 10-12

San Francisco PBS station, KQED, is one of the co-producers of the show (along with Granada Television) and it will be putting on a free preview screening on January 9, at 6 pm at KQED.  This screening is being sponsored by KQED, The Chinese Historical Society of America, the Chinese Culture Center, the City Club of San Francisco, and the Commonwealth Club of California.  For more information on this screening, click here.

I hope the show lives up to its hype.  I will be Tivo'ing it and reporting back. 

George Mason University's Business Alliance will be putting on a U.S. -China Business conference on January 24, 2007, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.

The Chinese Government's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the State Development Investment Company (SDIC), the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA), and George Mason University will be participating along with  "business leaders from 14 Chinese provinces representing the financial; mining and minerals; information technology; telecommunications; biotechnology; energy; automotive; textile, and steel sectors" will also be on hand. 

The conference will include a networking breakfast with a welcome from George Mason University President Alan Merten and remarks by U.S. Commerce Under Secretary Frank Lavin and NDRC Vice Chairman Ou Xinqian and "breakout sessions on banking and risk management; compliance issues; investment criteria; protecting intellectual property; shipping, logistics and documentation; investment strategies; business incubators and accelerators; opportunities for small businesses in China, and the role of venture capital."

It appears this conference will focus on SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) interested in China. 

I have written a few posts (here, here, and here) on Janet Carmosky's speech on the "Chinese Mindset" at the recently completed China Forum.  These posts generated a slew of comments and interest in the blogosphere:

1. The Useless  Tree, "Chinese Characteristics." 
2. China Hearsay, "Weighing in On the Chinese Mindset."
3. The Shanghaiist, "Extra, Extra."
4. The Peking Duck, "The Chinese Mindset."
5. Far East Cynic, "The Irony..."
6. Cal Poly MBA Trip, "Culture and the 'Chinese Mindset.'"

Many have rightfully questioned exactly what Ms. Carmosky said and you need question that no more.  The good people at Plastics News (who did a truly excellent job of putting on the China Forum) have now put Ms. Carmosky's entire speech online and it can be heard here.

I urge you to give Ms. Carmosky a full listen.

Janet Carmosky of China Prospects has been "doing China" since 1985 and she has lived in China for the bulk of the last twenty years, most of which time she was married to a Chinese businessperson.  Her Chinese (according to co-blogger, Steve Dickinson) is incredible.  She knows China.

To grossly summarize her talk, it was as follows:

1. Americans think the Chinese lie and steal.
2. China's morality is not the same as ours.  Ours is based on Judeo-Christian values.  China's is not.
3. Key to dealing with China is to get into a network.  Real Guanxi.
4. Chinese mindset is the following:
   • Tomorrow never comes.  When it does, you can start all over anyway.
   • Never tell anyone what you are doing unless you know what will be done with that information.
   • Take the opportunity, even if that means breaking a contract.
   • Nobody operates independently.   Survival depends on a network.
   • Do not trust anyone and respect only those in your network.
   • Teamwork and transparency are a drain on the system.

Ms. Carmosky also spoke a bit on the foreign companies that first went into China:  Coca Cola, Eastman Kodak, AIG and Johnson & Johnson and how they managed to achieve what they have in China.

As regular readers know, I generally do not place high value on cultural analysis for business and though Ms. Carmosky clearly knows her stuff, I am not convinced her speech contributes towards doing business in China.  Assuming everything she says to be true, how does that impact your business?  As a lawyer, I can say it should not. 

As Ronald Reagan used to say,"trust, but verify."  This is as true in the United States as China.  No matter how much you trust the people with whom you are dealing, there will always be times when a contract is necessary.  No matter what the tendencies of your Chinese employees may be to "lie and steal," you must make clear that such actions by your employees (particularly if it comes to paying bribes and receiving kickbacks) simply will not be tolerated and will lead to immediate firing.

I also take issue with Ms. Carmosky's calling for Westerners to get into a Chinese network as I think that is nearly impossible to achieve.  I also think that Westerners who actually believe they are in a Chinese network are, almost without exception, operating under a potentially dangerous illusion.  Steve Dickinson of my firm has been involved with China for around thirty years.  His Mandarin is so good that Chinese often refuse to believe he is an American; they think he is from one of China's more exotic provinces.  Yet Steve will readily admit he is not in any networks and will say he never will be.  As he puts it: "How can I compete with people who are from the same hometown, have the same uncle, went to the same high school, the same college, have the same culture?  I can't." 

This is not to say that Westerners doing business in China should not strive to achieve strong and long lasting relationships with those whom they deal, because they most emphatically should do this.  But at the same time, do not lose sight of the fact that you will always be an outsider.   

Beginning at about 1 pm PST/3pm EST today, I will be live blogging from the China Forum: Navigating China's Business Landscape, taking place today and tomorrow in Chicago.  I met with many of the speakers at dinner last night and that only confirmed for me that this is going to be an exceptionally worthwhile event.

Stay tuned. 

The American Management Association is hosting a conference on December 8, 2006 at the Marriott O'Hare in Chicago, entitled China Forum: Learn the Secrets of Doing Business in Today's China.    This one-day event will host several well-regarded speakers presenting on China business, including:

• Thomas J. Reckford from the Washington D.C. branch of the World Affairs Council, speaking on "China's Role in the World."
• Trevor Houser of China Strategic Advisory, speaking on  "Prospects for China's Economy." 
• Dr. Paul G. Clifford of Mercer Management Consulting and Marsh, Inc., speaking on "Competing with Chinese Firms."
• John B. Mumford of Washington Group International, speaking on China's Commercial Environment -- Opportunities and Pitfalls.
• William R. Dodson of Silk Road Advisors and This Is China Blog, speaking on Solving Business Problems in China.

I would love to hear from anyone who attends.

On November 9, 2006, from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm EST (USA), The U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of China Economic Area, will be putting on a webinar, entitled, "The Latest on Trademark Protection in China."  The program is free, though preregistration is required. 

I have attended Department of Commerce events on China and they tend to be quite good.  This webinar is described as a "discussion of China's Proposed Revisions to Trademark Law, Best Practices for Managing International Trademark Portfolios, Starbucks' Trademark Protection Strategies for China." 

The China Trade Law Report recently published my article, entitled, "China's Trademark Laws -- Simple and Effective," extolling the necessity of registering and protecting one's trademarks in China.  I am of the view that China trademark registrations can be quite effective and I would think this webinar will prove helpful to companies seeking to learn more about China's trademarking process. 

Corruption in China is obviously an important issue and The University of the Pacific -- McGeorge School of Law is putting on what looks to be a top-flight seminar on corruption (h/t to The Black China Hand and to The White Collar Crime Prof Blog).  The seminar is called, "Rethinking Corruption: An Interdisciplinary Look at a Fundamental Problem," and it will run all day on Friday, October 27th at University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, Center for Global Business and Development, 3200 Fifth Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95817.

The program will focus on the following:

Does corruption matter in today's globalized economy?  Or has it been overtaken by money laundering and terrorism as the central focus of international business regulation?  Did it ever matter?  Do current regulatory responses deter or contain corruption?  Are enforcement and compliance actions effective in impeding corruption?  The leaders in international economic development theory, international business regulation, and transnational corporate practice will offer thoughts and rethought on the impact of corruption on development, contemporary national and multilateral responses, the current state of play - and concrete recommendations for effective deterrence.

Dr. Salam Fayyad, Former Palestinian Minister of Finance, will be the keynote speaker.  Now before you laugh at the idea the keynote speaker is coming from what is probably one of the most corrupt and financially inept organizations in history, I will note that Dr. Fayyad is a highly respected reformer who is widely credited with having begun the process (since terminated) of bringing respectability to Palestinian finances.

Other presenters include the following:

• Dr. Michael Malloy, Director, Pacific McGeorge Center for Global Business and Development and Professor, Pacific McGeorge School of Law.
• Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, Dean, Pacific McGeorge School of Law
• Professor Frank Gevurtz, Director, Pacific McGeorge Institute for Global Business
• Daniel Kaufmann, Director, World Bank Institute
• Professor Richard W. Painter, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota
• Professor Jun Qian, Professor of Finance, Boston College
• Professor Franklin Zimring, Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall) (tentative)
• Richard Charlton, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• Professor Janet Dine, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London
• Professor Donato Masciandaro, Paolo Baffi Centre, Department of Economics, Bocconi University, Milan
• Andre Odermatt, LGT Treuhand AG, Liechenstein
• Nancy Zucker Boswell, Transparency International USA
• Carol Van Cleef, Bryan Cave, LLP, Washington, DC
• Dr. Emmanuel Omoh Esiemokhai, Professor, Shandong University (China) of Science & Technology
• Michael Keating, United Nations Resident Representative, Malawi
• Welby Leaman, International Trade, National Security Council
• Professor Sabine Schlemmer-Schutle, Pacific McGeorge School of Law

Based on China's importance, China's problems with corruption, and on those who will be there presenting, I have no doubt China will come up early and often at this event. 

On November 3, in beautiful Bozeman, Montana, Scott Rozelle will be lecturing on how China's economic changes may affect Montana. 

Rozelle's lecture is entitled "Demystifying the Mysteries of China: Towards an Understanding of the Wrenching Changes that are Transforming China and How They Will Affect Montana."  Rozelle is the Helen Farnsworth Endowed Professor at Stanford University and is senior fellow and professor in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies. Rozelle is also chairman of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the Agricultural Issues Center at the University of California; and a member of Stanford's new Food, Security and the Environment Program. 

"Dr. Rozelle's research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with three general themes: a) agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; b) the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and c) the economics of poverty and inequality."

For more information on this lecture, go here. 

In response to my recent post on logistics in China, a couple people wrote me mentioning the upcoming World Shipping Summit 2006 in China.  It will take place at the Wuzhou Guest House in Shenzen on November 2nd and 3rd.  The official website for the Summit describes it as follows:

Centered around the topic of "Mangaging China," the Summit will focus on the changing pattern of world trade and shipping, especially the development of BRICs -Brazil, Russia, India and China and their effects on the world shipping industry, and discuss the strategies to manage such changes.  With the development of BRICs, especially China, the shipping market changed dramatically.  How could the continued growth in the BRICs affect the world shipping industry?  How could we understand and manage the changes?  And how could we achieve success in the competitive market?

Conference themes will include:  Change Pattern: Trade & Shipping, Top Views on Managing Change, Ports & Shipping, Financing Shipping, Liner Shipping & Logistics, Bulk Shipping and Ship Management & Seafarer.

The conference will address all of the major shipping market sectors, with an international panel of expert speakers (a veritable international shipping who's who) including:

• Mr. Li Shenglin, Minister, Ministry of Communications of P.R. China
• Mr. Xu Zongheng, Mayor of Shenzhen
• Mr. Zhang Guanqin, President, China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry (CANSI)
• Mr. Li Kejun, Chairman of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), President of China Classification Society (CCS)
• Mr. Alberto Aleman Zubieta, Administrator, Panama Canal Authority (ACP)
• Mr. Tokinao Hojo, Deputy Chairman, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL)
• Mr. June-suk Choo, President of Busan Port
• Mr. Baron Leo Delwaide, President, Antwerp Port Authority
• Mr. Takao Kusakari, Chairman, Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line)
• Mr. Hiroyuki Maekawa, President, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd.(K-Line) 
• Mr. Tommy Thomsen, A.P.Moller - Maersk Group, Chairman of A.P.Moller Terminal
• Mr. Wong-Hsiu,Huang, Chairman of Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp
• Mr. JW Park, President, Hanjin Shipping
• Mr. Sanjay Mehta, Managing Director/CEO, Essar Shipping Ltd. (ESL)
• Mr. Huang Xiaowen, Managing Director, China Shipping Container Lines Company Limited (COSCO)
• Mr. Li Shaode, Chairman and president of China Shipping Group 
• Mr. Zhao Huxiang, President of SINOTRANS Group
• Mr. David O'Rear, Chief Economist at the HK Chamber of Commerce
• Mr. Nicolas Papadakis, Chairman of Intercargo
• Mr. Stephen A. Van Dyck, Chairman, Intertanko 
• Mr. Carsten Melchiors, Secretary General, BIMCO 
• Mr. John Lanigan, Executive Vice President, BNSF 
• Mr. Zheng Jingsheng, President, Yantian Port Corporation 
• Mr. Tom Simmers, President and CEO, Ceres Terminals
• Mr. Doug Marchand, Executive Director, GeorgiaPorts Authority
• Mr. Pieter Struijs, Executive Vice-President and COO, Port of Rotterdam Authority
• Mr. Hans Gerson, CEO, Port of Amsterdam
• Mr. June-Suk Choo, President  of Busan Port 
• Mr. Masatoshi Teresaki, Senior Executive Vice President, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd.
• Mr. Timothy J. Farrell, Executive Director of the Port of Tacoma
• Mr. Baron Leo Delwaide, President, Antwerp Port Authority
• Mr. Rajaish Bajpaee,Chairman,Eurasia Group of Companies
• Mr. J.A.A.J.(Jan) Fransen, Managing Director, Green Award Foundation
• Mr Thomas Tay,SMOU (Singapore Maritime Officers' Union )
• Ms. Marene Yu, Managing Director of TNT China Logistics, CFO of ANJI-TNT Automotive
• Mr. Wang Kangping, Vice President of TCL
• Mr. Li Changshun, President of Jinan Iron & Steel Group Corporation
• Mr. Tao Dong, MD, Chief Regional Economist, Credit Suisse
• Mr. Paul Chang, Head of Shipping Asia, HSH Nordbank, Hong Kong
• Mr. Mark Friedman, Managing Director Head of Global Transportation Investment Banking, Merrill Lynch 
• Mr. Gerry Wang, CEO, Seaspan Corporation 
• Mr. Martin Stopford, Managing Director, Clarkson Research
• Mr. Philip Damas, Drewry Shipping Consultants 
• Mr. Anton Harder, Simpson Spence & Young Shanghai Co.,Ltd
• Mr.Arjun Batra,Drewry Shipping Consultants
• Mr. James C. Hankla, Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners

There are even more people who may be coming to speak in addition to the above.  I would love to hear about the Summit from anyone who attends.

The Asia Society and mega law firm, O'Melveny and Myers, will be putting on a conference next week on China's Financial Markets.  The conference will take place on October 12, 2006, at The Four Seasons Pierre Hotel, on Fifth Avenue at 61st Street, in New York City.  The all-day conference is broken down into four panel discussions:  Developments in China's Banking System, China's Domestic Capital Markets, Overseas Listings of Chinese Companies and The Rise of M&A in China.

The keynote address will be given by Dr. Harry Harding, Director of Research & Analysis for Eurasia Group, one of the world's leading global political risk advisory and consulting firm.

I would love to hear about the Conference from anyone who attends.

"Extravagantly gorgeous," says Susan Stewart of the New York Times. 

"Should appeal to viewers of all ages," says Marilyn Moss of the Hollywood Reporter

"Puts human faces on the statistics," says Brian Lowry of Variety Magazine.

"Pulls out all the stops," says Jennifer Nycz-Conner of the Phoenix Business Journal

"Beautiful, intriguing and historic," says David Hinckley of the New York Daily News.

A new movie?  No.  The premiere episode of Atlas on the Discovery Channel, entitled, "China Revealed." 

The series leads off today on the Discovery Channel at 9 pm Eastern and Pacific Time and will be repeated at the same time on Sunday, October 8.  The Discovery Channel website describes this first episode as follows:

In one of the few times in its 5,000-year history, the oldest, most populous nation on earth has opened its doors to the rest of the world. Coupling insightful storytelling with spectacular and groundbreaking photographic techniques, Discovery Atlas: China Revealed brings to life the fascinating and complex contemporary life of this extraordinary country.

In today's China, the economics of feudalism and communism are out, while capitalism is in ... with a Chinese twist. Old walls are being torn down, and a futuristic landscape of glass and steel is shooting up in their place. Leading the construction frenzy is Vincent Lo, China's answer to Donald Trump. Exploring where tradition meets modernity, viewers will follow the dreams of a 12-year-old Olympic hopeful, then join rice farmers tilling land their ancestors have worked for 18 centuries and monks teaching a 500-year-old discipline. Discovery Atlas: China Revealed promises to be a visual delight, delving deep into the people and places of the oldest civilization on the planet.

The Discovery Channel's "meet the people section indicates it will be focusing on the following:

• A rice farming family in Longshen.
• A kung fu master at the Shaolin Monastary
• A Shanghai real estate developer
• A gymnast who trains in Beijing
• A Shanghai migrant worker
• A Beijing bow maker

It will be airing in China as well. 

It will be in HDTV and within a few days of its airing, the Discovery Channel will release the episode in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, making it the first television show to be released on the two new high definition DVD formats. 

I have already Tivo'ed it and will be reporting back after I have seen it. 

I am a big fan of the book Chinese Lessons, and of its author, John Pomfret, whom I have heard speak many times on NPR and who I consider an excellent guide to understanding the generation of Chinese who were young teens during the Cultural Revolution.   

Mr. Pomfret will be reading from his book at 192 Books (h/t to the Critical Mass Blog) in New York City on September 20 at 7 pm and in San Francisco at Stacey's Books on September 28, from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm.   

Since I did my initial post on Chinese Lessons, the Prince Roy blog has somewhat unfavorably reviewed it.  Though I disagree with the Prince's review, I found it very thoughtful and I recommend reading both the post itself and its comments. 

I know it is already Monday in China, but since there is still time and since the discussion leaders are truly tops in the field, I am running with this, adding an apology for not having learned about it sooner.

On Monday, September 4, 2006, starting at 7:30 p.m.,  there is going to be a free discussion regarding internet publishing in China, led by Jeremy Goldkorn, Roland Soong, and Hong Huang.  Jeremy (I should call him that because I know him) is a Chinese media/internet veteran and the brains/driving force behind the pioneering and always interesting blog, Danwei.org.  Roland Soong is behind the venerable and enlightening blog, EastWestSouthNorth.  For a BBC interview of Mr. Soong, go here.  Hong Huang writes the blog (in Chinese), Hong Huang Writing for Fun.  I have learned from this Danwei post that Ms. Huang is "the CEO of CIMG, which is the company that produces Time Out's Beijing edition, China's version of teen girl mag Seventeen, and a women's rag called iLook. Hong Huang is also the daughter of one Zhang Hanzhi, who was Mao Zedong's English teacher."

The discussion will be at the Beijing Bookworm, Building 4, Nan Sanlitun Road, Chao Yang District. The bookworm's website has a map to the bookstore. 

For those of you in Beijing, I would not miss this. 

The United States Department of Commerce and the China Business Information Center are putting on a free webinar to explain the proposed new regulations on dual-use items exported or re-exported to China.  The webinar will take place on September 14, from 1:15 p.m. through 2:00 p.m., EDT.  It will be led by Matthew S. Borman, Acting Assistant Secretary, responsible for implementing the Bureau of Industry and Security's controls on the export of dual-use items for national security, foreign policy, nonproliferation, and short supply reasons and will focus on the following:

• The Scope of the proposed amendments
• Revision to the China licensing review policy for national security controlled items
• Understanding the proposed military end-use control
• New authorization for Validated End-Users
• New exporter requirements to obtain End-User certificates.

It will conclude with a question and answer session. 

A reader from Seattle (of course!) alerted us to an upcoming two-day, free program on China IP, to be put on by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  Entitled, "Protecting Your Intellectual Property in China and the Global Marketplace," this program will be on Wednesday and Thursday, July 12-13, 2006, at the Grand Hyatt in Seattle, Washington.

This program will focus on " China�s laws and regulations that may affect how a business protects and enforces its intellectual property, how best to protect business assets to avoid intellectual property problems in the first place, how to recognize when an intellectual property asset has been infringed, what to do if infringement occurs, and what the U.S. government is doing to improve the intellectual property protection and enforcement environment in China."

No agenda or speakers have been listed, but registration here is already open.   

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Doug Berman, a second year law student at Indiana University School of Law, who speaks Mandarin and will be interning in China this summer.  I met Doug a year and a half ago when I was at IU's law school lecturing as an international law "practitioner in residence."  Doug and I have stayed in e-mail contact ever since and a few weeks ago he e-mailed me to tell me about an upcoming, invitation only, conference on China at Indiana University Kelley School of Business.  The list of attendees was impressive and I found the topic fascinating.  But, I could not attend and Doug, as a mere law student, did not think he could wrangle an invitation to this big global event.

So we devised a plan.  I would request an invitation for Doug to attend as China Law Blog's first ever on the ground reporter.  It worked, Doug went, and this is the first of a serious of posts from Doug on the conference. 

This first post gives a brief overview of the conference and discusses its central issue: China as capitalist, yes or no?  The second post will discuss the practice of law in China.  The third post will delve into the concept of Chinese exceptionalism. 

So without further ado, here is the first of Doug's report:

I [Doug] just attended the IU Business School sponsored conference on "Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics" on the political economy of China. The central topic of this conference was the role of capitalism in today�s China.  The title of the conference, �Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics,� is a refashioning of the �Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," first used in 1982 by Deng Xiaoping. 

Scott Kennedy, a professor in Indiana University's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, put together the conference and he gave the opening speech.  Dr. Kennedy compared his first trip to Beijing in 1988 to his most recent visit last year and he talked about the huge differences between then and now.  He then discussed whether we should be calling China a capitalist country. 

Margaret Pearson, a Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, expressed skepticism of China as capitalistic due to its lack of property ownership rights, which she viewed as inherent in capitalism. Andrew Wedeman, chair of the Asian Studies program at the University of Nebraska, stated that however we define China's current system, it will eventually degenerate into a kind of crony capitalism or booty capitalism (if it has not done so already).  Deborah Davis a sociology professor at Yale University, contended that China is more capitalistic than many countries in Europe.

Various speakers talked about how the lack of consensus on this issue stems from China being a mixed-economy, with state ownership and no few real property rights, as in socialism, but at the same time, it has the vibrant and highly competitive business structure one sees with capitalism. 

Marc Blecher, a Professor in Oberlin College's Politics Department and East Asian Studies Program, talked about state control in China as relating to his own work in Xinji, a small city in Hebei province undergoing enormous industrial restructuring. Dr. Belcher talked about how we should view China's smaller towns as examples of modernist development aimed at maximizing production, even though many of China's planners are driven largely by political considerations. 

Lawyers tend not to put much stock in theories of capitalism or political development or descriptive models of the �state,� focusing instead on the rule of law as a means toward developing stable democratic institutions.  In my [Doug's] view, though law is the linchpin of a stable society, we must also realize that trying to understand the kind of system China is (or is becoming) can help in doing business in China.  Knowing the relevant laws and regulatory regimes there is crucial, but understanding the roles of China's institutions and the close connections between between politics and industry is also of critical importance. 

China Law Blog's [Dan's] comments:

1.  Thanks Doug for a job well done.

2.  I agree with Doug that in doing virtually any kind of business in China, one must understand the role of the state and, in particular, the state's interest in your particular type of business.

3.  I consider China largely capitalistic, at least as it relates to foreign companies doing business there.  Yes, its property rights are not even close to what one normally thinks of under a capitalist system, but they are obviously good enough so that countless private entrepreneurs feel safe enough to start and grow their businesses.  Competition among most industries is rampant in China. 

4.  I get the feeling many of the speakers overrate the role of the Chinese state in business.  It would be silly to deny it is important, yet, at the same time, without exception, our Chinese clients are dynamic international companies that operate as such.  They tend to do whatever they can to avoid the yoke of the state and, for the most part, they succeed.  I disagree with the predictions of China becoming a crony capitalistic state mostly because I think that overrates the strength of the central government.  If anything, I see the government slowly losing more control over business. I base this on the laws that are being enacted that are freeing up businesses and on the growing percentage of GDP contributed by private enterprise.  Now I realize that crony capitalism and private enterprise are not incompatible, but in China, where it is so much easier for government bureaucrats to take their "piece" of a government owned entity, that has so far not been the case.  I also see the government as being more interested in maintaining order than anything else.

5.  I concur with what seems to be the view of Dr. Belcher that even though the Chinese bureaucrat may be political, his development decisions might be rational and -- dare I say it -- capitalistic.  I think one of the differences between China and Russia and between China and Vietnam (though Vietnam is slowly changing in this regard) is that the Chinese system is generally set up so that government employees are rewarded when businesses bring prosperity to their region.   

6.  I also wonder why there was not more discussion (or maybe there was as Doug was not able to attend every session) of the Chinese government as capitalist actor.  For example, I see a city owned factory as being a very different beast than the Beijing central government. 

Stay tuned.

China Law Blog's own Dan Harris will be appearing live today on the BBC World Show, "World, Have Your Say."  The show will air at 1800 London Time, 1:00 p.m. EST, and 10:00 a.m. PST. 

The topic is whether China has too much power.  In good lawyer fashion, I will say both yes and no.  Just kidding. 

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the best way to watch/listen is probably via the internet.  To do that, go here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/#  and then on the right hand side click "Listen to the Show." 

I watched one of the episodes of the highly publicized new four part TV series, "China Rises."  I watched the episode entitled, "Getting Rich" and I thought it was nicely done. 

The following things from the "Getting Rich" episode stood out for me:

1.  Many of the Chinese citizens interviewed spoke of the nearly limitless opportunities China now offers its people.  Only a few hours after watching this program, I was interviewed by a U.S. paper doing a story on China and I was asked what I thought was the American people's biggest misconception about China.  I said the idea that the Chinese people are in a constant state of repression. I said the reality is that the people with whom I deal (and admittedly these are for the most part the urban elite) are hugely proud of their country and wildly optimistic about its future.   

2.  Though one cannot fairly describe China as a country built on laws, it is becoming more so each day and the people are more and more turning to China's courts for legal redress.  These courts do not always rule fairly, but they apparently rule fairly enough for the people to generally believe in them.  I have definitely found this to be the case in the business world, where threatening to sue a company that has not paid its bills usually convinces them to pay. 

3.  Private enterprise is thriving and it is China's private companies (not its state owned entities) that drive what the show kept calling the "greatest transformation in history."

4.  The Chinese elite concur with the government's go slow reform policy of "crossing the river by feeling for stones."  In the show, an obviously wealthy banker talks about how this policy, first coined by Deng Xiaoping in referring to China's step by step liberalization, makes sense for China.  Those with whom I talk in China concur with this.  I think the urban elite of China concur with this not because they feel compelled to do so by the government, but because this policy has, at least so far, served them so well. 

The series is a co-production of the Discovery Times Channel, The New York Times,  the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, France 5, and S4C.  For more on this series, click here.  You can see the series trailers on the DaveinChinaBlog. 

The Discovery Times Channel will be running a four part television series on China, starting tomorrow (h/t to the Migratory Fool Blog).  The series, entitled, "China Rises," is a co-production of the The Discovery Times Channel, The New York Times,  the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ZDF, France 5, and S4C (A Welch Channel).  The series will focus on China's politics, environment, society, and economy.  For more on what is looking to be a most interesting four hours of television, click here. 

On April 6, 2006, Indiana University School of Law is putting on in Bloomington, Indiana, what is definitely shaping up to be a fascinating symposium on The Globalization of the Legal Profession: 

Much has been written on the process of globalization and its effects on international and individual state law. The impact of globalization on the legal profession has received far less systematic attention, despite a universal recognition that the practice of law and the economic and personal lives of lawyers may be on the brink of profound transformation. The purpose of this unique symposium is to initiate dialogue about how globalization is fundamentally changing the work lives and professional opportunities of lawyers in the U.S. and abroad. Prominent figures in the global legal industry will explore various interrelated themes on the issues facing legal profession, including law firm strategy, the relevance of geography, the lawmaking role of transnational lawyers, and how cultural norms affect or shape our perceptions of ethical lawyering. The program will include presentation of scholarly papers and responses by symposium participants.

The breadth of knowledge and backgrounds of the participants guarantees this event will be both interesting and informative.  The speakers include top international lawyers, law and business school professors, and business consultants.  [NOTE: I am listed as a speaker, but, unfortunately, other obligations preclude me from attending.]

The Adam Smith, Esq., Blog, gives a good summary of the topics at this event:

Law Firm Strategy in a global world, including "What management structures are necessary to govern a global law firm with offices on multiple continents?"

Relevance of Geography, including "Are some locations, based on longitudinal growth patterns, emerging as truly international legal cities for firms attempting to fit the transnational model?"  Or, phrased differently, why are more firms hoisting their flag in New York, London, and Hong Kong, despite those cities' having among the highest operating cost structures on the planet?

Convergence, including:  "Can transnational law firms successfully balance the competing goals of higher profitability and professional autonomy? To what extent is the practice of law, and identity of lawyers, converging around certain practices and values? If so, are those practices/values those characteristic of the US legal profession?

The conference will be in a somewhat hybrid format, blending the academic with the practical and hands-on, and all papers and presentations will subsequently be published.

On April 7, 2006, the Los Angeles County Bar Association is putting on an International Employment Law Symposium in Los Angeles.  This event will consist of employment lawyers from around the globe speaking on international employment law issues and trans-border employment disputes.  "In addition, U.S. practitioners whose employment practices focus on international disputes and counseling will provide insight into this growing and emerging area of employment law."  This symposium has a star studded international panel, including a number of international employment law practitioners from China.  Nicholas P. Connon helped put together this symposium and he will be its moderator.  Nick is the Vice Chair of the Los Angeles Bar Association's International Law Section and truly one of the leading lights in international employment law.  His involvement in this event guarantees it will be a big success.

Mark Cohen, the U.S. Embassy Intellectual Property Attach� in Beijing, will be giving a one hour online seminar on China IP protection this Friday, February 24, 2006, from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EST.  Webcast is being sponsored by Big Four accounting firm Deloitte. 

For more information and to register, click here.

Harris & Moure attorney, Charles Moure, will be speaking live today at 8:45 a.m. PST on Fox News regarding the Entwistle murder case.  This will be Charles' s third national news appearance on this case.  Charles is appearing to lend his considerable expertise on international jurisdiction. 

Steve and I will be going to Seoul, Korea, for a couple of days, then on to Shanghai on February 13, for a few more days, then to Qingdao for a week or so.  I will then return to Seattle.  Steve will be staying in China (mostly in and around Qingdao, Dalian, and Yantai), through March, and then he will return to Seattle to give a speech on China at the University of Washington Business School's Global Business Forum on April 11. 

If you wish to meet with us in China, please drop us an e-mail.  We will, of course, be blogging from there.

Harris & Moure attorney, Charles Moure, will be speaking live today on Fox News regarding the Entwistle murder case.  This will be Charles' second national news appearance on this case.  Charles is appearing to lend his considerable expertise on international jurisdiction. 

Having been on national television a few times myself, I can only say it is harder than it looks; answering never before heard questions before millions of people is no picnic.  Charles is expected to appear today (Sunday in the United States) between 1pm and 2pm PST.