Helen Wang over at the Chinese Dream blog is just out with an interesting post on innovation in Chinese manufacturing, or the lack thereof. The post is entitled, "Myth of China’s Manufacturing Prowess," and its central thesis is that Americans misunderstand what drives Chinese manufacturing. I agree with her and at the end of this post, I will explain how this misconception can negatively impact foreign companies that use China for their OEM manufacturing. Ms....

Spoke with a China lawyer friend of mine today who told me his firm had not "done" a single China Rep Office for the last six months. Every time someone had contacted them with plans for a China Rep Office, it ended up as a WFOE. I told him the same thing had been happening at my firm as well and that the only time I could remember not trying to talk a client out...

Rich Brubaker of All Roads Lead To China is out with an über-helpful post, entitled, A Few Rules for Succeeding in China, setting out the following eight rules to follow to succeed in China: 1. Show up with reasonable expectations. Rich notes how many come to China with "unrealistic expectations… or at least have yet to fully put into context the amount of investment it will take in time, money, and capacity to achieve those...

I had a conversation the other day with a leading journalist on how both of us are always right about our predictions. I joked that the beauty of writing is that all we need to do show how right we are is to highlight the predictions on which we were right and to let cognitive dissonance wash away all the other ones. Damn, but I was right to predict 2010 would be the year of...

Sometimes the strangest things get me to thinking. Today it was an article, entitled, "Court of Appeal rules on without-prejudice communication," by London lawyer, Andrew McGregor. An incredibly rough summary of the article is that British courts will exclude settlement negotiations as evidence. Bear with me here, as there will be a China angle here soon. As an American lawyer, my first thought was, "of course." Of course because US Courts have long had such...

Every month or so, I get an email from someone asking me for my views on their starting a business in China. These emails usually come from someone who has been in China for a year or so at a really low paying job or from someone who just recently graduated from college in the United States. I typically respond with one or two sentences of lawyer advice, something along the lines of the following:...

A few days ago, I did a post borrowing from and remarking upon an excellent post by Geraldine Johns-Putra on five ways doing deals in China differs from doing deals in the West. I loved her first post and she has just come out with a second, entitled, "Ten things about doing deals in China that are different from the West – Part 2," which is also so good that I would be remiss if...

Maybe five years ago, I was at a really mediocre China conference right here in Seattle. I knew it would be bad, but I had been given a free ticket and I needed the CLE (continuing legal education) credits. And it was. Bad that is. One of the reasons it was so bad was because the moderator would spout out things like "whatever we [the United States] are making, China can make just as well...

David Dayton over at Silk Road International has just written a great post on China lawyering, without even knowing it or trying to do so. His post is entitled, "Reasons why a factory doesn’t want you to come see things," and the main point is the conclusion: if a Chinese factory does not want you visiting, it has to mean something bad is afoot. Dayton sets out the excuses he hears as to why it...

In one of my college history courses, my professor was big on emphasizing how much China's mistrust and dislike of foreigners had influenced it. This professor saw the Great Wall as THE symbol of China's attitudes towards foreigners and he ascribed virtually everything China did to its desire to keep its distance from foreigners. Though I have never been a fan of "one motive" analysis, I do think it would be naive to believe China's...

About four months ago, in Part I of this series, I promised we would go through our blogroll and justify and expound upon each blog, five by five. A couple of months ago, I did part V of this series. This is the sixth of this slowly running series, where I explain, in alphabetical order, why it is that each blog managed to qualify for our blogroll under our admittedly "slippery, vague, and subjective criteria:"...

As many of you know, we recently formed a China Law Blog Group on LinkedIn as a forum for open discussion on China law and business issues. That group has been thriving with nearly 600 members already and a ton of fascinating and enlightening discussions under its belt, including the following: -- Do Chinese professionals have better phone ethics? (with 33 comments) -- Chinese companies can't build brands? Think again. (with 52 comments) -- Google...

I had a great conversation the other day with a nurse who called me with what I think is a killer product. I spoke with her for a while and found myself really enjoying the conversation because she had done such a good job in terms of laying the groundwork both here and in China for all that she was seeking to do with her product. Among other things, she had hired the right people...

Every few weeks some publisher emails me and asks me if I want a book on China to review and every few weeks I say yes, in a vain attempt to trump Milton Friedman. I read maybe half the books I receive (virtually always on an airplane), like probably 75% of them, and tend to review only those I like and believe would be good reads for our own loyal readers. But I never know...

During one of the breaks in the recent Berkeley Asia Business conference, I took part in a conversation with an American guy whose wife was expecting her first baby and an American woman with a toddler. Both of these people had spent many years in China and loved it and both were still very much engaged in China related businesses. Both talked of how important it was that they be in China for business reasons....