Managing The Dragon

Innovation and the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) go hand in hand, and are two topics that come up frequently in discussions about China. Tsinghua University is doing a study on the status of both in China and asked for my comments. Following are my answers to Tsinghua’s first set of questions. Part II [...]

Over the past several years, I have been a regular contributor to the “Opinion” section of BusinessForum China, a bi-monthly magazine published by the German Chamber of Commerce. Founded nine years ago, the magazine’s objective is to inform members of the international community about the latest developments in business and the economy in China. It [...]

Google’s withdrawal from China and the relationship between the United States and China is on everyone’s mind these days. Sam Gustin, a senior writer for Daily Finance, AOL’s money and finance site, called last weekend and asked a series of questions about both issues. Sam wrote up our conversation in an article that appeared in [...]

Paul Eckert, a good friend who used to be based in Beijing for Reuters but is now in the company’s Washington office, asked for my opinion on the U.S. government’s role in the Google affair. I told him I believe that the U.S. government had made the situation worse by getting involved in the first [...]

A lawyer friend of mine once told me about a particularly humorous negotiating session he had in Hong Kong in the 1990’s. At a critical point in the negotiations, it seems, the Chinese counterpart to his Western client kept repeating, in cryptic fashion, the question: “In or out? In or out?” Google now has to [...]

In case you haven’t noticed, the deteriorating relationship between the United States and China is turning out to be the major story of 2010. Quite apart from tensions on trade and the currency, new issues are popping up every day, and old issues like Taiwan that have not been in the news for some time [...]

When I sat down on January 12 and made the following two predictions for 2010, I believed that a trade war was looming and that the relationship between the United States and China would deteriorate as a result. Prediction #4: The relationship between China and the United States will deteriorate in 2010. Prediction #5: China [...]

How many times have you heard the following recipe for success in China? Understand and adapt to the local market; Design products and services for Chinese consumers; Localize and empower your management team in China; and Make decisions locally. If you’re like me, you’ve heard it a lot and have probably passed along similar advice [...]