The Chinalife

China To Become Worlds Biggest Luxury Market By 2014

2008-04-18T13:49:00.005-06:00

Yu Guangzhou, vice minister of Ministry Of Commerce, says that by 2014 China may become the world's biggest luxury market with about 23% share of the total global revenue.
-From China Media Blog

Impressive, and definitely a possibility, I don't have official numbers but I believe now that China is already the 2nd biggest.

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak has proposed a permanent liason link with North Korea

2008-04-18T11:56:00.002-06:00

It will be very interesting to see how this works out, but it seems that all of Asia is finally making a real push toward co-operation with each other. Which is always good.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak proposed Thursday the creation of the first liaison offices in the capitals of the two Koreas, which are technically in a state of war.

He told the Washington Post newspaper in an interview during his visit to the United States that the proposed offices in Seoul and Pyongyang would act as a permanent communication link.

"When I go back, and this is the first time I am publicly making this recommendation and suggestion: we need ... to open a permanent dialogue channel between the two Koreas," the new South Korean leader told the Post.

"In the past, we had dialogue between the two Koreas when there was a need and then if there wasn't a need, the dialogue would close," Lee said ahead of talks with US President George W. Bush on Friday.

"I don't think that is helpful in the situation," he said.

Unlike his two predecessors, conservative Lee has promised a firmer line on North Korea, linking aid to nuclear disarmament in a move that has angered the hardline communist state.

The North has kicked South Korean officials out of a joint industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong, test-fired missiles and accused Seoul of breaching the country's sea border.

Pyongyang has also threatened to turn its neighbour into "ashes".

But Lee said the two Koreas were in an "adjustment period" after he took over in February, following 10 years of rule in Seoul by liberal presidents who preached engagement.

"Both North and South Korea must change their ways," Lee said. "It is not sufficient for North Korea to resort to their old ways."

Li-ning or Nike?

2008-04-14T11:49:00.002-06:00

In today's New York Times, columnist Joe Nocera notes that China has quickly mastered the intricacies of a market economy and cheap manufacturing, but its new-found enthusiam for brands hasn't yet translated into the ability to create them. The Li-Ning sneaker is the eponymous brainchild of a famous Chinese gymnast, but its modified checkmark logo says "Nike." Its English-language slogan, "Anything is Possible," sounds an awful lot like adidas' "Nothing is Impossible." And while Li-Ning has snagged endorsements from Western sports figures including Shaquille O'Neal, the Shaq figure stamped on some styles apparently bears strong resemblance to the Nike Air Jordan silhouette.
Like other domestic Chinese brands, Li-Ning would like to achieve a bit more respect (translation: higher price points) at home, and a share of the Western market as well. But before Li-Ning secures shelf space in your local Foot Locker, Nocera argues, it will have to learn a bit more about the art of branding. Not to mention trademark law.

This Article from Counterfeit Chic is really interesting and a good way of showing the foreign perspective of Li-Ning. But it seems to me that they are missing on something that is quite crucial. Not only do Chinese people not consider Li-Ning to be a rip-off of Nike (although they will admit it looks pretty similar if pressed), but more importantly it's huge in China. More people have Li-Ning products than Nike. They may get one Nike product, but have several of Li-Nings. While Li-Ning has some luxury value, it's nothing close to Nike's. So while Li-Ning may want to take the luxury or more expensive approach I would argue that they stick with the way they are going and try to become more similar to Nike or Adidas in America. A top athletic brand, but not a luxury or super exclusive brand. Doing that Li-Ning can keep higher prices but still have the mass consumer base as well as being able to take advantage of being homegrown.

Apple Gphone

2008-04-05T00:29:00.003-06:00

Motley Fool has a very good article about the possibility of a new 3G Iphone, and what reason Apple would have of releasing one. They make the point that Apple has no reason to bring an Iphone to either the US or European market as their sells are already decent enough, and even so, would not get much of a boost by changing to 3G. The one market that they would have a benefit is China. As their talks with China before fell through by quite awhile ago and with China Mobile starting an experiment of 25,000 3G phones over 8 cities this next month (I'm not sure of the cities right now, but will try to find out). It seems that Apples best chance of getting the Iphone to China, would be to release it as 3G. Although I think that if they did release a 3G version they would still have to do some other negotiating with China Mobile, as I'm sure they aren't too concerned with having the Iphone, considering that Chinese people can just buy one and jailbreak it.

China offers $40 Bln in credit to Nigeria

2008-04-02T11:16:00.003-06:00

Sinosure, which is China's export guarantee facility made an offer to Nigerian president, Yar’Adua, when he was in Beijing last month. He came leading a delegation of oil industry and business leaders. The exact details haven't been decided yet, but according to Nigeria's finance minister, Sinosure offered $40bn-$50bn of its facilities to help fund projects in Nigeria, to be spread out over three years. As Nigeria is the largest oil producing nation in Africa, this is a great move by China just from that aspect. But if you look into it deeper, it's an incredibly beneficial move, to both Nigeria and China. Firstly although every nation says they care about Africa, the truth is that the only nation that's doing anything to benefit Africa in any substantial way is China. No matter how much money people donate to special charities it does nothing for the future. Even the doctors that go over occasionally to provide medical treatment, as great of a thing as that is, it doesn't have any lasting effect outside of the ones that are there for a long time (a couple years at least) teaching and training other doctors. The best way to not only benefit a nation, but also to have influence over it, is a way China knows better than any other nation on earth. That way is to trade with it. So not only is China securing energy for it's future, it's firstly securing it's place in a continent that will eventually have much influence in the world once China and India fully make their transition from being manufacturing nations, to super powers and consuming nations. And secondly it now giving itself more influence than any other nation on earth on what's going on in Africa, from human rights, to politics, etc.... Just look at the situation with North Korea. But many people think this doesn't matter because, according to them, China has it's own problem with these, and is doing nothing to fix them. But in actuality China is doing more to solve it's problem than many people even consider, and although they definitely have some major problems still, just looking at how much better they handled the recent situation, even with the western media bashing them should be a good enough example. But the truth is some people will never give China it's fair due, why? Because China doesn't talk about what it's "going" to do, like some other countries. Rather China chooses to not waste it's time talking about what it's fixing and just fix it.

China no longer the best place to manufacture....Oh really???

2008-03-28T12:39:00.003-06:00

Dan, at ChinaLawBlog has two great post's about the way china's manufacturing is going. A lot of people have beliefs that china is no long the place to manufacture, and I have been closer to the opinion that while, it may not be the best place to manufacture cheap stuff anymore, it is fast becoming the best place to manufacture much more technical things. For thing's like Ipods, laptops, and whichever new gadget comes out we can't even think of right now, China will be the place to get it made. While things like socks, or shoes, and simple clothings might begin to move to southeast Asia, and India. Dan makes an interesting point though, saying that while the labor is much much cheaper in some parts, the infrastructure has not yet reached a level to be of any worth. Also he gives some examples of the companies that are moving out of China. They tend to be major corporations who have the funds and capacity to set up an infrastructure to be based around them, that will actually be beneficial to them. But as he points out, for most importers, they have to deal with what is already in place, thus keeping China a much better choice for all manufacturing in the near future. Check out his post here, and here.

China Responds to State Department Comments

2008-03-25T13:04:00.003-06:00

China has recently responded to the reports by the state department that "Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant's consent or knowledge." As I wrote in my previous post this is ridiculous and inappropriate. I am glad that China has now come out with response. In the short article by AP, China basically says that, It was out of line for America to say those things, and that China's security measurements, in public places, such as hotels and offices, is "in accordance to international norms." That they specifically only mention public places is interesting, and obvious, as that is all a regular traveler to China should be worried about, and anyone traveling to "non-public" places is probably fully aware that there will be increased security.

Is America Serious!?

2008-03-21T13:58:00.006-06:00

Seriously people, please. I can understand the western world being ignorant of China. I can even understand when foreigners come here and first think they'll have the Chinese government monitoring their every move. But seriously, having the US Government issue a warning about never having privacy, and that "All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times." This is just plain ridiculous. Not only is it impossible for China to keep tabs on EVERY foreigner visiting China, Especially during the Olympics. They have no more reason to than America would. Of course they are uptight about what gets out to the news, but that's why they do watch journalists much more closely than every other foreigner. If China we able to monitor every foreigner, and if according to the state departments, "Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant's consent or knowledge." I don't think there really would be many foreigners left in China. From either being deported or more so, leaving from having their house broken into. This article really upsets me, and while I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the US government is more stupid when it comes to China than even most of the ignorant 'citizens.' At least some of them are open to new information and willing to accept that China has changed from any previous ideals that they once had, and that maybe they themselves were just a victim of the anti-communist propaganda of their days. That China is less Communistic now than America. That your more likely to get spied on, and your phone call's listened to in your own country than when your visiting for the Olympics. If you want to read the full article is here, from ESPN surprisingly enough.

Update--- Just found the Fact Sheet from the State Department here. The actual fact sheet gives a much more balanced view and so decent warnings. Shame on ESPN for trying to scare people.

Google China Accused of Tax Evasion

2008-03-21T12:20:00.002-06:00

I first heard about this from post on Shanghaiist, they touch briefly on the tax evasion and on some of the new stuff that google.cn is planning. Which honestly looks like some really interesting stuff, but only time will tell how much it draws the Chinese to the much less favored search engine. More importantly though is the interesting claim by shanghai securites newspaper claiming that China Tax authorities are investigating not only the company but the individual income taxes, the most well known being Lee Kai-Fu the founding president of google china who previously worked for Microsoft. Google denied all claims yesterday, and said that they were late on paying the income tax because they were "consulting the local authorities." It's interesting that Google would even allow this to be happening, I would think with how hard they've worked to follow China's law's that they would either be doing a lot better job of finding loopholes in the tax laws, or being as completely upfront as possible. Overall though I think this will go away without too much of an effect on Google's presence in China, and hopefully the new additions they're planning on rolling out soon will be a big boost.

Squat Toilets

2008-03-19T15:55:00.003-06:00

There's an article on aol today about an issue the baseball players had in their exhibition game with the toilets. This is shocking to me, not that they had a problem. But that Beijing seems to have paid so little attention to that particular area. Especially when Shanghai has already been focusing on improving their public toilets for the World Expo that's not until 2010! I rarely read article on aol, and found this link from another American site. I also have not heard anything about it from any reliable Chinese blogs or news. If it is true, that Beijing has a substantial lack in western style toilets. That really is ridiculous.

Update----

Today most the blogs in the Chinese Blogosphere have picked up the toilet story, looks like it's true, but Beijing will be doing a lot to fix it. More from I Love China

Tibet

2008-03-19T15:03:00.004-06:00

There's a lot of stuff going on in Tibet right now, that if you haven't heard about yet, your probably not paying attention to any news, China or otherwise. It's been going on for several days now, but I've felt it's not my place to talk about it. Especially since I'm not in China right now, and there are so many great bloggers that are there. They have some great insight on both sides and, if you're really curious about it many are under the "other sites I like" link. One of the best probably being EastSouthWestNorth Blog

What happens when you push the button at the Gas station?

2008-03-18T23:59:00.002-06:00

Funny and interesting video of what happens if you push the fire button at a gas Station.

Mechanical World

2008-03-16T20:48:00.004-06:00

Thought this was a great picture, and makes you wonder about the world and how much we use machines today. Will we soon see Machines, playing other machines, or are they already? I found it from "sanantha" over at Neocha.com which is a great website for underground music and art in China, but I'll talk more about it in a later post.

Famous Dave's BBQ

2008-03-14T12:41:00.003-06:00

Since I've been back in Utah I've been using an office at my Dad's law practice. Doing my own work, and also helping with some paralegal things. Right near the office building is a restaurant called Famous Dave's BBQ. I'd never gone there before, but every time you walk out of the building, the smell from the restaurant is so overwhelming. The thing is though is that it smells delicious. So today I mentioned something about it, and although both my older brother and my dad had tried and not liked it before, they figured we should try it since I'd never had it. So we first enter the restaurant, and first you notice all the people that are eating there, definitely not health conscious people. But the Service was great, and we were quickly seated. The decor was decent, typical BBQ style, one nice thing though is University of Utah flags everywhere! So I'm starting to like this place, and decide on a burger with some pepper jack cheese and pickles. It was surprisingly pretty good, but definitely more food than any person really needs. Overall it was a pretty decent dining experience, although once you walk out, you are engulfed in the smell of the restaurant only this time it's not appetizing when your stuffed with the exact food you just ate. Worse still we walked back in the office, and WE smell like Famous Daves! Definitely a negative. With that, and more so the just decent level of food, I don't think I will be going back there any time soon.

Corruption in China

2008-03-13T20:57:00.006-06:00

There's a great article on "China Law Blog" about the the most corrupt countries in Asia.

The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) recently asked "over 1,400 expatriates" to rank 13 Asian economies on corruption and the results of that survey , from least corrupt to most corrupt, are as follows:

1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. Japan
4. Macau
5. South Korea
6. Malaysia
7. Taiwan
8. India
9. Vietnam
10. China
11. Indonesia
12. Thailand
13. Philippines

While not anything absolutely official, it's still really interesting to see how low China ranks on this list. Especially when you consider how many people in America would put them automatically at the top just from the misconceptions they have about China. It seems to me that people tend to think of china as corrupt because China itself will talk about corruption in the government, and working to get rid of it. The interesting thing I find though, is that most of what American's consider 'normal politics' would be extremely corrupt in China, and many other countries. Which makes me wonder as I have many times before, which country really has the better government?

Back in Utah

2008-03-11T15:43:00.000-06:00

I'm back in Utah now, and have been for sometime now. I was originally planning on being back in China by the end of January. That has long passed now though, and I'm stuck hoping that I can get back before the Summer. Hopefully I can at least be back before the Olympics.