I love it when my wild assertions are proven right. I am always writing about how terrible the service is at China’s hotels and restaurants and I have often posited that service in China is the worst in the world. In “Win-Win Negotiating In China,” I lit into China for its service and compared it
I just finished reading Troy Parfitt’s book, Why China Will Never Rule the World, and as I always do when I finish a China book, I read other reviews before writing my own. Peking Duck’s excellent review has convinced me not to really bother. So instead of a full-on review, I will just summarize my
David Wofl at Silicon Hutong just did a post on ethical issues in China, Business Ethics and Culture Clashes in China and I love it for three reasons. First, it is very well written. Second, it imparts useful advice. Third, it says many of the things we repeatedly preach on this blog. In fact, replace
The big story in the China business/legal community this week is the back and forth between Muddy Waters and Sino-Forest (see here).I will reserve my comments on the specific situation until things develop further, but I will add my two-cents about something called a “Reverse Merger” or “RTO,” the corporate structure at the center of
About a week ago, I did an article, The Five+ Best Books for Understanding China [link no longer exists]. The article was a public response to a request that I reveal “3-5 good books to read to understand China that are contemporary, but also something providing some historical perspective to current doings.” I listed the
Earlier this year, I was on a slow highway on the outskirts of Hanoi when my daughters said something like “look at those dogs being prepared for eating. Eewww.” Without looking, (and thinking they were referring to live dogs in cages) I tried to put the best spin on things for my 13-year old by
Clients, potential clients and the press are always asking our China lawyers what foreign companies that do business in China need to know to stay out of legal trouble. Next time I get such a question, I will refer them to the list below as it sets out the most common legal issues foreign companies
I have been practicing international law for so long that I can understand English language lawyer emails from just about anywhere in the world, pretty much no matter how poor the English. I love explaining emails in Kanglish (Korean-English) or Chinglish (Chinese-English) to someone who has no clue what it says. Well you see, “maybe”
Muddy Waters is a hedge fund company that targets dodgy US-listed Chinese companies, shorts them, and then documents the fraud in which those Chinese companies engage. Muddy Waters has an impressive list of Chinese companies it has exposed, including China Media Express, Duoyuan Water and RINO International. These companies appear to have two things in
One of the things I love about blogging is how I get my stories. This one came to me via an international lawyer in Portugal who sent me a link on Buddha Steel (more on that later) from the China Accounting Blog. First, I am going to briefly discuss Variable Interest Entities (VIE) and how
