After the kids, mom and dad will get fat - Paul French

Image via WikipediaObesity in China is mainly a problem for the children, says retail analyst and co-author of the book "Fat China" Paul French to The National. But after the kids, in the future, also the parents will suffer from overweight, like in developed countries.

The National:

Figures for Beijing last year published in state media showed that 25.6 per cent of 12-year-old children were obese. There is even a problem among the under fives, 17 per cent of whom are obese and therefore five times as likely to be overweight in later childhood.

"You don't tend to see fat families. You tend to see the fat kid. The little emperor is fat. He's having McDonald's, and no one ever says no to him when he wants his Coca-Cola and biscuits. In the next generation we may see fat mums and dads with their kids," said Paul French, co-author of a book published last year called Fat China, and publishing and marketing director of the Shanghai research agency Access Asia...

There are sometimes limited opportunities for children to get exercise at school, partly because some parents do not appreciate the importance of physical activity. Grandparents will commonly carry the schoolbag of their grandson or granddaughter.

"They're supposed to do one hour of physical activity [at school each day], but the parents complain, 'Why are the kids doing one hour of sport? - that's not going to get them into Harvard,'" Mr French said.

Paul French

More in The National

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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The amazing make-over of Huawei

Huawei HQ in Shenzhen via WikipediaChina's largest IT manufacturer and developer Huawei from Shenzhen has gone through an really amazing make-over. Earlier this week I was asked by a Dutch broadcasting station if I could collect some information about this Chinese company. The Dutch minister of Economic Affairs had organized a trade mission with Huawei earlier in 2011, but at the time hardly anybody seemed interested. Now, my friends at the Dutch VPRO hoped to get some proof that this company was a PLA-front trying to collect secrets in the West, they suggested to me.

I replied right away that there competitor Cisco is most likely a CIA-front and was probably easier to prove than the Huawei/PLA connection. When you are in the IT-business, you need enough of your own expertise to make sure partners, whether American, Chinese or Dutch, do not run away with what you consider to be business secrets. Not doing business with anybody is the only safe way to prevent espionage.

It might still take another month before I can discuss any plans (Europe takes holidays very serious and traditional media are largely out of business from March to September), and I might have spoiled it by denouncing the PLA/espionage angle to start with. But it was reason enough to play around on the Internet a bit, to check whether my own view on Huawei was still acurate.

Four, five years ago, Huawei was mostly known from its ventures in China and developing countries and was making its first steps into the developed markets. That was initially not a huge success. Media described how Huawei's military like organization structure drove potential foreign employees crazy. A string of media reports made fun of those efforts by Huawei at the time, and I got those stories also confirmed by business people who tried to help the company setting up shop in Europe.

But a short tour on the internet made clear that my view on Huawei could also need some adjustment. While I always kept in mind that the negative coverage half a decade ago could well by organized by PR-spin doctors of Huawei's competitors, now the reversed seems to happen. I'm no expert on their technical achievements, I do know when I see a professional spin. Included you find a few very sleek video's from their US operation, where you find former managers from Nortel and BT, singing the gospel of Huawei.

In these times of crisis, it might be easier for Huawei to pick up qualified managers, but both their stories do their bit: I found them rather convincing, even when you realize this is corporate propaganda. In the US, Huawei is still seen as the Chinese enemy, destroying US jobs and jeopardizing its security. And when you look at both video's, you hardly realize that Huawei is actually Chinese, their background is downplayed very much, although the huge China market might be one of the reasons for its success.

I also realized why the Dutch government changed its position towards Huawei from rather reluctant (following the US lead) to an enthusiastic supporter. The West-European headquarters are based in Amsterdam and has already 350 employees. When you look at the enthusiastic stories from Silicon Valley, you can see why drooling Dutch politicians made their kowtows in Shenzhen.

Not only in terms of employment Huawei is interesting, potentially it can help to boost also knowledge centers in Europe, if it only had a few comparable with Silicon Valley. The second part, might for a large degree be a political illusion, as long as scientific innovation has no European legs and is even divided over different regions in a small country like the Netherlands.

But most certainly, here is news being made, although in a different way traditional media might think.

Related articles

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Online rage continues, but does it change anything? - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

China's official media have been trying to catch up with the online anger of the country's internet users after the Wenzhou train crash, tells media analyst Jeremy Goldkorn in the Voice of America. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last time. But does it make a difference?

The Voice of America:

Jeremy Goldkorn, a Chinese online media analyst and founder of Danwei.org, says state media found it difficult to ignore the amount of online criticism.

“By Monday morning there had been such a huge outcry in the Chinese internet and particularly on Sina Weibo about it that as the work week started on Monday the media was, the news media was playing catch up with the citizens reports on the Internet," said Goldkorn.

Seemingly, there is little the government can do to put a lid on [quiet] the outcry. Even its directives to state media outlets to limit coverage and to not investigate or comment on the cause of the accident have been leaked online, and are not being followed entirely.

State media have published strong editorials demanding a thorough investigation. ...

Then there were problems with the high-speed system.

"Just about three weeks ago, at the beginning of the month, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway opened and ... and in some of the first few journeys through Beijing to Shanghai, some of the trains were delayed," noted Jeremy Goldkorn, "what should have been a five-hour journey ended up taking much, much longer, and people got stuck on cars where the air conditioning had broken down and they weren't given an explanation, and this became something like a little micro-scandal on the Internet, because people were posting photographs and complaints about that."

However, Goldkorn says it is hard to say if the public anger will prompt a re-assessment of the high-speed rail system. He notes that after a milk safety scandal hit China in 2008, there was also plenty of similar commentary online. In the end, he says, it did not seem to change monitoring of the dairy industry and food scandals continue to happen.

More in the Voice of America.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Party arrogance, worn thin - Bill Dodson

Prime-minister Wen Jiabao claimed an 11-day illness to explain why it took him so long to pay respect to the victims of the Wenzhou train crash. But always vigilant internet users noted Wen a day after the crash on official business, notes author Bill Dodson, who analyzes on his weblog the credibility crisis for the communist party.

The sophistication of Chinese users in the use of digital communications technology has matured beyond the online petitions that marked the melamine poisoning disaster, just after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when milk laced with a cousin of plastic was fatal to a dozen children in China and harmed scores more.

This time really is different, with Weibo tweets and blogs and editors of online newspapers combining their efforts to make a concerted attack on the high-handedness and opacity with which the CPC has been operating for decades. Now, though, the “trust me I know what I’m doing and you’re just along for the ride” arrogance of the Party has worn thin as even the man on the street seems to be questioning whether China’s infrastructure development pace is too fast.

In China Inside Out: 10 Irreversible Trends Reshaping China and its Relationship with the World, Chapter 1, I write extensively about the use of the internet in China to flush out abuse of power in the government. This time, though, government censors seem to be on the side of the citizens. Chinese users are still criticizing, tweeting, blogging and investigating with abandon.

More at Bill Dodson's weblog

Bill Dodson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Weibo stopped toeing the party line after railway crash - Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn

China's successful microblogging service Weibo ignored the party line, as the online anger about the railway crash near Wenzhou exploded. Internet watcher Jeremy Goldkorn explains in CNN the government is trying to put the ghost back into the bottle. Yang Feng, who lost family in the crash, became an overnight hero.

CNN:

While [the official broadcaster] CCTV shunned him, Yang became an overnight hero in the eyes of Chinese netizens who were riled by the government response to the accident, especially the perceived ineptitude and arrogance of the railway ministry. Less than 24 hours after he posted his first message on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, Yang has gained more than 110,000 followers.

"The closer you get to the centrally controlled media, the more they toe the Communist Party line," explained Jeremy Goldkorn, a long-time Chinese media observer whose Danwei website monitors the industry. "For this accident, Weibo posts have been so far ahead of official responses."...

For Weibo users, however, any sense of vindication may prove short-lived. Analysts say Internet censors have already begun deleting more posts as netizens became critical of not just the scandal-plagued railway ministry but also of the flaws of the political system.

"They are trying to shove the genie back in the bottle," media observer Goldkorn said. "Weibo is such an effective amplifier of people's dissatisfaction that it is worrying the government a lot."

Now Yang has turned uncharacteristically quiet. Pleading for his supporters' understanding, he alluded in his most recent Weibo posts that he was under tremendous pressure to keep a low profile for the well-being of his family -- including his father-in-law, who survived the train crash.

More in the aftermath of the railway crash at CNN.

Jeremy Goldkorn is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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China: the changing expat market

Shanghai via WikipediaA few times this week, I was forced to think about the position of expats. I was asked about my opinion of a few online services: internations, and expatbuddy.nl. With a background in China, my roots with the former expat community might be slightly different from other countries, but both websites seem to focus at an interesting niche market at best. A market I no longer belong to.

In my experience in China, the expat market seemed to be a booming one, when I started to travel the country early 1990s. Much of the needed management skills were imported, literally, into this booming country. Those expats had different levels of success, but in numbers they were huge and growing. When I arrived in Shanghai, two bars and the Australian consulate were enough to cater for most of the expats needs. But that exploded very fast, as it was initially very hard to get enough domestic managers, on any level.

So, you had expats on any level. The CEO-level for foreign companies in China, the middle management and the adventurers. At my time at the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club I had mainly to deal with the last group. Enthusiastic American or European journalists who wrote me an email telling they had packed their suitcases to join the booming Chinese economy. Where could they go to, to join the action? My advise in most cases: start unpacking again and become real.

But the expat world was a parallel universe, next to the Chinese one. It looked like a real industry, and I had a part time job in avoiding investment advisers, real estate agents, language schools and other nuisance at meetings of the chambers of commerce, in in cold calls. But the situation of the foreign expat has changed dramatically, as far as I can see from afar.

In the top-management, you still find the expats, although their numbers and packages got a severe dent during the first financial crisis. But they are increasingly comparable to the expats in Brussels, Zurich and New York. Global companies have their own staff-rotation schemes, and services are still needed to provide them with housing, advise on how to greet the natives and where to find the more popular hangouts. But they feels expat for perhaps a few months, when they are in transition. But see them as a kind of community? I have serious doubts here. When being _not_ part of a society is your basic identity, there is something wrong. And, compared with the 1990s and early 21st century, generous packages have typically disappeared.

The middle management has almost fully swapped places with Chinese managers. Both domestically groomed and returnees from abroad have taken the places where previously foreign managers dominated. For my work at the China Speakers Bureau I deal in China almost exclusively with Chinese managers, as we deal with Europeans in Europe, and Americans in the US. That is not only good news for the Chinese in those positions: compared to their colleagues with international exposure elsewhere in the world, their salaries tend to be much lower. For expat services, here is no chance.

The third group, the adventures, are without doubt the most active participators on most expat fora. They need jobs, cheaper housing, contacts, all things I was not able to offer them. I'm not sure if journalistic adventurers are different from those in other industries, but I have seen their income levels seen falling below those of Chinese journalists. Chinese journalists have a pretty good position in their society, but that is very much closed for their foreign colleagues. Poorly paying English language publications and copy-editing for Chinese publications. And of course, native English speakers can get a job as a teacher. For me, those groups are not very interesting, and I seriously wonder if expat services, online or offline, can make a buck here.

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Where do Shanghainese want to travel to?

The times when Chinese wanted a fridge and a bicycle to show off their well-being are already over for a long time. But what are must-does for the Shanghainese today? Some visitors from Shanghai have been passing by and came up with their top-5 of travel destinations: the US, the UK, Switzerland, and surprising for me: South Africa and Russia.

They had already been in South Korea, Japan and Australia. While they were reasonably happy about those trips, they would not do it again. Simply too common, everybody is doing it. (It reminded me of Shaun Rein's observations about Nokia's downturn and Apple's upsurge). Still, with still a billion people to go, countries might be happy with a low-end, low-margin approach of their tourism market, but it might not be the most effective way to make money on the Chinese.

For that reason, Thailand was certainly a nono: Shanghainese are not even going to try that tourism destination. Both India and Indonesia are not yet excluded, like Thailand is, but they are also not in the top-5 destinations.

Remarkable is also the absence of the main European countries, apart from the UK and Switzerland. Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Greece were not even mentioned in their listing.

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Can China become a leading global innovator? - Bill Fischer

Bill Fischer

After becoming the shop floor of the world, China is now focusing on its position as global innovator. IMD-professor Bill Fischer examines in Forbes whether those ambitions can become true. Counting patents is certainly not the way.

There is a big difference between creating new ideas [creating value] and capturing the value associated with these new ideas.FT.com/alphaville reports that many of the Chinese patents counted are utility patents, and do not represent significant new contributions to knowledge [in other words, not value creation]. Furthermore, at least one observer on the scene has reported that Chinese government authorities are encouraging the disaggregation of patent applications in order to boost the numbers of patents being produced. This month, INSEAD’s Global Innovation Index for 2011 ranked China just 29th overall in innovation [Switzerland #1, U.S.A. # 7]. According to this analysis, although China’s innovation benefits from growing market and business sophistication (for a middle-income economy) and a lively financial sector, there are disadvantages associated with social infrastructure deficiencies relating to innovation-related institutions and human-capital development. It would appear that while China might be becoming more productive in generating patents, these may not necessarily translate into economic impact. On the other hand, China ranks #1 as the world’s top “importer of R&D,” which would be appropriate for innovation strategies based on value-capture...

Increasing the “rate” of inventive activity will only get you so far. In order to make it big on the global stage, a nation’s firms need to be able to capture the economic value associated with that activity. This means investment into organizational design on a global scale, establishing brand visibility, building worldwide supply chains and channels of distribution, and all of the rest of the complex set of activities that go into making a successful multinational corporation. Two years ago, Rebecca Chung and I reported that experienced Chinese managers participating in CEIBS’s [the China Europe International Business School] EMBA program appeared considerably less optimistic about China’s prospects as a global innovative leader than did a similar set of their peers in IMD’s EMBA program [66% of the 53 CEIBS' EMBAs saw China's near-term future as "staus-quo", while only 18% of their IMD peers agreed with this assessment]. Perhaps what the Chinese managers saw, that outsiders in their enthusiasm missed, was that increasing inventive activity might well be the easiest part of successful innovation, and that it is indeed a less glamorous and more managerial long march to becoming able to realize the value associated with that increased inventive activity.

More in Forbes.

Bill Fischer is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Why Nokia falls and Apple soars in China - Shaun Rein

Image via CrunchBaseWhile Nokia, the former leading manufacturer in China, is in heavy weather, Apple is booming in the same market. The difference, according to market analyst Shaun Rein in CNBC? Nokia lost the wealthy Chinese, where Apple is winning them.

Shaun Rein in CNBC:

My firm's research suggests that Nokia controls only 10 percent of the market for upper middle class and wealthy Chinese, down from more than 50 percent as little as three years ago. Similar to western firms such as Best Buy and Home Depot that have retreated from the market, Nokia did not pay enough attention to local consumer needs.

They lost the surging upper-middle class market because of a foolish strategy to go down-market on pricing rather than understanding that even poorer consumers are often willing to pay premiums for phones. Nokia made the mistake of not understanding that the Chinese are no longer price sensitive for many products, and often buy products to show off.

In a study with 1500 consumers in eight cities about mobile phone shopping trends, my firm found that after a house or car, the mobile phone is the most prized possession for a majority of consumers. For many Chinese who cannot afford a house or a nice car, the mobile phone becomes the status symbol to show off.

They will save months of salary to buy the latest gadget, which is why many buy an expensive iPhone 4 that costs 30 percent more in China than in America. But Chinese consumers barely use their iPhones for voice calls, having saved so much money to buy the iPhone in order to gain status.

Nokia cheapened its brand by going too low-end to attract a wider range of customers. Wealthier and more aspiring consumers started to shy away from the brand because it became too common.

Shaun Rein

More in CNBC

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Taiwan might build own fighters, if F-16 deal falls through - Wendell Minnick

Wendell Minnick

While the military in Taiwan prefer US-built F-16 fighters, another delay in delivery from the US might force the island to build its own fighters without US approval, writes defense expert Wendell Minnick on his weblog.

The state-run Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC) has produced two prototypes of the new F-CK-1C/D Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF). AIDC spent roughly $230 million from 2001 to 2007 under the Hsiang Sheng (Soaring Upgrade) program to develop a new fighter based on the IDF A/Bs built during the 1990s.

Since October 2006, the C/Ds have completed 400 flight tests. The fighters are outfitted with two conformal fuel tanks that enhance combat radius and endurance, a digital glass cockpit, and an enhanced Golden Dragon 53 multimode radar, based on the Lockheed Martin AN/APG-67 radar.

The C/Ds can carry 771 kilograms more fuel and payload than the A/Bs. AIDC strengthened the structure of the landing gear and incorporated a digital anti-skid system to prevent accidents during takeoff and landing, an AIDC official said.

The C/D doubles the load of Tien Chien 2 (Sky Sword) air-to-air missiles to four, and modifications allow it to carry the new Tien Chien-2A anti-radiation missile and the Wan Chien (Ten Thousand Swords) cluster bomb, both in development by the military-run Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology.

Taiwan’s Air Force initially rejected the C/D option in favor of pushing for new F-16s. However, AIDC was able to persuade the service in 2009 to go forward with a midlife upgrade package for 71 of the 126 IDF A/Bs. Minus conformal fuel tanks, the upgraded IDFs include many of the same improvements of the C/D variant. The first six upgraded IDF A/Bs were handed over to the Air Force on June 30.

More on Wendell Minnick's weblog

Wendell Minnick is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need his insights at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Japan brands continue to dominate Asian consumer loyalty - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff

Japan brands will dominate consumer loyalty in Asia, while China brands will offer them competition only in the long run, although they are learning fast, says JWT's North Asia CEO Tom Doctoroff in CNBC.

CNBC:

“Japanese brands are built on scale, heritage, product differentiation and significant (advertising) spending,” said Tom Doctoroff, North Asia CEO at J. Walter Thompson (JWT), who points out that much of the creative, brand building responsibilities for Japanese consumer firms have been outsourced to multinational agencies.

Doctoroff believes the country’s brands will continue to dominate consumer loyalty in Asia going forward, particularly because Japanese companies are ramping up their focus on international expansion...

“There is absolutely no Chinese brand right now that is actively preferred to Western or Japanese brands,” Doctoroff said.

However, he added that mainland consumer firms are beginning to understand the importance of image...

One such push by Chinese consumer firms to increase brand recognition is via product placement. The recently released Hollywood movie, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon, featured products from mainland names including PC-makerLenovo, flat-screen television manufacturer TCL and leading dairy products firm Yili.

This may be one small step in the right direction, but Doctoroff points out they still have a long way to go.

“The real barrier is the structure of Chinese organizations and their focus on short-term sales versus long term growth. Chinese CEOs are not solely motivated by gains in shareholder value, they have one eye focused on the market and the other one on political motivations,” he concluded.

More about Japan's brand names in CNBC.

Tom Doctoroff is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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China's home-grown green laws - Charles McElwee

Charles McElwee

China's environmental laws use elements from green laws in Europe, the US and Japan, but the result is uniquely Chinese, writes environmental lawyer Charles McElwee in ChinaDialogue.

While China’s environmental law regime comprises a set of national laws and regulations similar to many western models, it is important to understand that the Chinese tend to define the fundamental aspects of their environmental legislation in terms of a set of systems or principles, not individual national laws.

As Dr Yin Fucai of the Anhui province Environmental Protection Bureau has put it: "[i]n China, every environmental man knows eight environmental regulations and policies.” Or seven or ten depending on which “environmental man” you are talking to, but the perspective revealed by this statement is the same. Most observers seem to ascribe to the notion that there are “three principles” (such as “polluter pays”) and at least seven generally accepted “management rules” (for instance the “Three Simultaneous” system – which requires that a facility and its mandated pollution control measures are designed, constructed, and placed into operation at the same) at the core of China’s environmental regulatory scheme.

These principles and regimes were formulated primarily during the three national environmental-protection conferences in 1973, 1983 and 1989 andset forth in the statements summarising the conference discussions. All of them were incorporated into the 1989 version of the Environmental Protection Law, and other laws and regulations adopted subsequently.

More in China Dialogue

 Charles McElwee is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Rating the internet cafe's - Tricia Wang

Sociologist Tricia Wang researches mobile and internet behavior among China's migrant population and rates the many internet cafe's she visits between 1 and 10. Warm hot dogs are a plus, the protein of the internet cafe.

Some fieldnotes on her weblog:

Cafe rating - 8 stars: air-conditioned, requires identification cards and they appear to check them, no mosquitos or flies, keyboard and mouse appear to be clean, available warm food (hot dog in food display, bathroom located on same floor as cafe (2nd floor), cloth on chairs are in place, no nuts or food scattered on ground, the workers seems responsive when customers need help, cubicles in back appear ot be new

keyboards are not stained with dirt though the keyboards are black so it would be hard to see the dirt -but I don't see food encrusted in between the keys

estimate: total of 100-120 computers, 60 computers are being used with around 40 people playing games and 15 people watching videos and 5 people on websites browsing, 40 females and 20 males, I see 5-6 couples together, there are 2-3 people napping at all times

most customers playing games have a soft-drink or sugar beverage with them, some have lots of wrappers of candies and other snacks spread around their keyboard

within the last hour, two customers (one male & one female) bought 1 hot dog each, the meat is kept warm in a transparent plastic food display with a light, you can see the oil on the hot dog bubbling up, 1RMB each, customers went back to their computer and began playing their game, the female was playing a dancing/clothing game of some sort, male playing first person CS-like game..

More at her weblog.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Sentiment against internet stocks - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

China's Internet companies are delaying listings in the US and for good reason, business analyst Shaun Rein explains in the US-edition of the China Daily. Negative sentiments rule even among the often too optimistic US investors when they look at China.

 "It makes sense for Xunlei to postpone their IPO because it is doubtful they would have received a warm welcome," said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm in Shanghai.

Rein added it is "a terrible time" for Chinese companies to list on the US stock market after a number of accounting scandals have damaged the credibility of US-listed Chinese companies.

Xunlei, which booked $47 million in sales over the last 12 months, planned to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol XNET and has JPMorgan and Deutsche Securities as the lead underwriters on the deal.

Xunlei hoped to raise $114 million by offering 7.6 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) in a price range between $14 and $16...

Short sellers such as Muddy Waters Research have accused Chinese companies such as US-listed Sino-Forest, the Hong Kong-based operator of tree plantations, and Spreadtrum, the Shanghai-based chip designer, of fraud, although both companies' shares have rebounded from their lows in recent weeks.

Last week, rating agency Moody's Investor Service raised warnings about accounting and corporate governance risks at more than 40 China-based companies. "Sentiment is against Chinese Internet stocks right now. Aside from fears about reverse mergers, there are fears of volatility," Rein said.

More in the China Daily

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Breasts: big business in China - Bill Dodson

Image via WikipediaPlastic surgery on women is booming, together with the wealth of the Chinese consumers. On his weblog China watcher Bill Dodson reports about this wife's visit to a clinic, with queues outside the building, together with their parents, paying for the operation.

“They’re paying for their daughters to have surgery on their faces?”

“And breasts,” she added.

“And breasts.” I could feel a rush of testosterone weaken my knees at the prospect. (Men are such simple animals).

“The parents believe if their daughters are more beautiful they can catch a boyfriend with more money.” Of course, “boyfriend” in China nearly always means “fiancee”. Doesn’t take more than a couple dates to seal the deal. I imagine, as well, a pretty face and shapely figure don’t hurt job prospects, either; especially if one looks at job qualifications for airline attendants, bullet train attendants and secretaries.

The Straits Times reported in January this year about the Chinese cosmetic surgery industry, “About 3 million people had plastic surgery on the mainland in 2010 in an industry worth an annual 15 billion yuan (S$2.9 billion), statistics from the MOH [Ministry of Health] showed. There were also 20,000 lawsuits against clinics in China in 2010 for botched jobs and “lopsided” results.

My wife figures that about 90% of young girls in Suzhou have had plastic surgery of one sort or another. I think her estimate is rather high, though I am amazed at the rapid growth rate in pretty girls with busts locally – where there had been very few of both just a few years ago.

Or maybe, it’s just that Chinese women are drinking more milk and wearing more makeup.

Bill Dodson

More on his weblog

Bill Dodson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Furniture scandal hits consumers' nerve - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Losing the confidence of Chinese consumers is easier than gaining is, tells business expert Shaun Rein in CNBC, analyzing the most recent products scandal: the fake furniture scam. What can foreign companies learn?

The products were shipped to China’s border, and then suddenly became “imported” the next day after bribing local officials to certify them as imported or ‘Made in Italy’. The situation has caused uproar among Chinese consumers and has become a media circus as the government has been pushing for an end to quality control problems in Chinese factories and has allowed the media to report on the scandal...

The scandal engulfing Da Vinci, and by association its partners, shows western brands need to be very cautious about whom they choose to represent their brands or to whom they license products. It is common for western brands to enter China via partnerships or licensing agreements rather than doing it alone. Now that the markets are more transparent than even a decade, it might make sense for some foreign companies to take back ownership of their China operations as Starbucks did when it bought out its partners for control of its store operations in the country. Luxury retailers Ralph Lauren and Burberry did the same thing to manage their brand and operations better.

Companies like Pierre Cardin or Disney generate a ton of sales from licensing and have done well so far. But if brands are going to go the route of licensing or partnerships, they need to police their partners well. Brands like Versace and Fendi will most likely take a hit on their reputations because of their association with Da Vinci. Consumers might wonder if these firms’ furniture products are made in China and have quality control problems, and they might have the same worries about their luxury clothes.

More in CNBC

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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China brands need a good legal system to thrive - Paul French

Paul French

Everybody is using Chinese products, but China's brands are not doing well. Thriving brands need a good legal system, tells retail analyst Paul French in Brandchannel, and that legal protecting is lacking in China.

Brandchannel:

"If you're going to innovate, if you're going to be entrepreneurial, if you're going to create and invent things, you need a legal system that can protect your invention," says Paul French, a nearly 20-year resident of China who works for the Shanghai consulting firm Access Asia, NPR reports.

"The government should take the lead on that, and an independent legal system needs to be able to do that, and to respect the rights of entrepreneurs and innovators," he says. "And at the moment, that is simply not the case here." French has a laundry list of issues — intellectual property rights, a free Chinese press, the environment, pensions – that would all need to be dealt with in order to help China boost its brands worldwide.

More about China's brands in Brandchannel.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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We need a sugar-free zone over Shanghai - Paul French

Image via WikipediaUS-style doughnut shops are proliferating in China's large cities, and that is bad news for their already deteriorating diet, tells retail analyst Paul French in the Washington Post, when they take of. French studied the obesity levels in the country in his book "Fat China".

The Washington Post:

“We’re going to need a U.N. resolution very soon – they’re going to have to declare a sugar-free zone over Shanghai,” said Paul French, the British-born founder of a market research company, Access Asia, that focuses on the retail sector. “There’s too many, because we’re starting to see them close down.”

For the time being, and that is good news for the Chinese diet, the stores are not doing well:

Still, the pessimists think the doughnut might have a hard time finding a toehold in China — as evidenced by the largely empty doughnut stores, and the number of leftovers on the shelves at closing time. “It’s one of those food concepts that has singularly failed to set the country alight,” said French, the retail analyst.

French noted the biggest obstacle yet: In Shanghai, he noted, police officers seem to prefer smoking cigarettes to taking a doughnut and coffee break. “They haven’t cracked the cop market,” he said.

Paul French

More in the Washington Post.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.


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Mullen's visit boosts US-China military relations - Wendell Minnick

"Last week's visit to China by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is further evidence that military relations are improving and will continue to do so," writes defense specialist Wendell Minnick in the Defense News.

Wendell Minnick:

During the four-day visit, Mullen and [gen] Chen [ Bingde, the chief of the general staff, People's Liberation Army] announced plans for joint exercises and continued dialogue on a variety of issues, including continued working groups under the Maritime Consultative Agreement; hospital ships of the two navies will conduct exchanges and carry out joint medical and rescue exercises and the armed forces of both sides will conduct joint humanitarian rescue exercises and anti-piracy patrol drills in the Gulf of Aden.

Both sides discussed maritime disputes in the South China Sea, cybersecurity, arms sales to Taiwan, China's military modernization, recent U.S.-Philippines joint military drills and upcoming U.S.-Vietnam naval drills.

Chen said he was "glad to witness the rejuvenation of bilateral military relations, as they are often hard-won and should be treasured." The question remains on how Taiwan will readjust to enhanced U.S.-China military relations. Taiwan is pushing the U.S. to sell it new F-16 fighters, and China has called any deal a "red line."

More in Defense News.

Wendell Minnick is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference,do get in touch
.

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Credit crunch leads to slowdown - Victor Shih

Credits by Chinese banks are on a leash, cashing a slowdown in China's breakneck growth speed. Financial and political analyst Victor Shih explains in Business Week how that works out.

Business Week:

Victor Shih, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies the local debt problem, says the banks are reacting to poor returns on their investments in everything from real estate to subway lines. “Banks’ focus now is to use existing credit to ensure loans don’t go into default,” says Shih. “That makes credit to new projects more difficult—one reason we are seeing a slowdown.”

Moody’s estimates that 8 percent to 12 percent of China’s total loan portfolio could be nonperforming: The official figure is 1.2 percent. Earlier this year, Fitch Ratings warned that nonperforming loans could reach as high as 30 percent. Especially vulnerable are small businesses. They account for 80 percent of employment, according to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, yet struggle to get credit.

More about the credit crunch in Business Week.

Victor Shih is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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mailto:fons.tuinstra@china-speakers-bureau.com