You are here: Home / Archives for Fill Your Mind

Walmart and the Birth of the Restricted VIE

August 22, 2012 By

Reblogged from China Finance:

While there are some fairly varying opinions regarding exactly what happened when walmart got conditioned approval for their acquisition of Niu Hai Holdings, one thing at least seems clear: MOFCOM is not overly fond of VIEs.

This certainly won't be welcomed by foreign investors using VIEs, but its hardly news either. MOFCOM have been the most vocal department when it comes to issues relating to VIEs, for instance in their recent M&A regulations, so a continues negative stance is hardly shocking.

Read more… 177 more words

Fredrik Öqvist does some interesting reading of the VIE tea-leaves. The Ministry of Commerce, he suggests, doesn't like VIEs very much, but they are less likely to outlaw them outright than slowly squeeze them so the structure becomes more headache than benefit. Further Reading: VIEs: The Long Resolution (siliconhutong.com)
Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Asia and the Need to Re-engineer Research

July 24, 2012 By

Hutong West
Wonking
1200 hrs. local

Fair warning: I’m about to get a little wonkish, so if you don’t care about market or academic research, skip on down to my last post.

In an otherwise superb review of Doh Chull Shin’s Confucianism and Democratization in East Asia, in Foreign Affairs, (“Confucius and the Ballot Box“, July/August 2012) Andrew Nathan digresses from his eloquent explanation of why “Asian Values” and democracy are not incompatible to defend Shin’s methodology.

Critics view the survey-based study of culture as flawed in three ways. First, if culture is something shared by all members of a society, treating it as a distribution of values and attitudes among individuals ignores the way it works as a shared experience. Second, by reducing culture to a series of questionnaire items, the survey method oversimplifies complex, multilayered attitudes. Third, the questionnaire format forces respondents to choose among rigid response categories that cannot adequately reflect their beliefs.

For all that, the survey method remains indispensable. No other approach does as good a job of finding out what large numbers of people actually believe. And it is less reductive than the older method of gesturing in the direction of an entire nation and claiming that all its members share some vaguely defined set of norms.

This all may seem like a shot in an esoteric battle of academic nit-picking, but it is telling that Nathan feels compelled to conduct this preemptive defense in a review written for a mainstream (rather than purely academic) journal. Dr. Nathan protests overmuch, and in so doing gives us a view to his fear that while they may be one of the few methods available to make the social sciences as scientific as possible, surveys have some innate flaws that call for some extra scrutiny on Shin’s thesis specifically, and the conduct of research in Asia in general.

My first concern is general: does the survey method travel well? The survey method was developed in the West by sociologists who were operating in a specific culture and political environment, one in which people feel relatively comfortable about voicing their honest opinions without worrying about political reprisals or pleasing the person doing the survey. This is important because if you stop to think about it, the value of any answer to a survey absolutely depends on those two conditions.

Yet common sense and a passing knowledge of Asian cultures call into question whether these conditions exist to the same degree in Asia as the West, and, equally important, whether they exist to the same degree among Asian cultures. Indians, for example, might be very ready to answer frankly and at length. Would Koreans be as willing? Would Singaporeans? Would Japanese? Would there not be differences between how Americans would answer and how any Asians would answer?

I would be less concerned if Shin had conducted his survey in the context of a single culture, because he could have designed an survey and delivery method that compensate for the variances between that country’s culture and the outspoken West. One firm I know in China, for example, has learned how to compensate for cultural factors by making the interviewer someone who is known and trusted by the interviewee, and focuses on interviewer training to work the variances out of the responses.

But Shin’s survey cuts across sixteen different cultures and nationalities, and this brings me to my second concern. By using the survey method across a range of cultures and polities where there are likely to be huge variances in the willingness to speak out and the cultural desire to please, is it even possible to wind up with comparable results?

I have no answers that I can prove scientifically, but the questions need to be addressed before we accept Shin’s findings or those of any survey in Asia – whether academic of for business research. If we are genuinely interested in defensible research, we need to question our implicit assumption that the tools created in one culture work just as well in any other, and then test our answers.

I would feel a lot better about Dr. Shin’s book if either Shin – or Dr. Nathan, whom I admire greatly – had hinted that they had even considered whether the survey method is culturally appropriate outside of America at all, and whether and how it can be meaningfully administered across cultures.

They did not, and I believe that they did not because they cannot. The minute they start questioning the precious few tools on which their peer-reviewed research rests, they lose the ability to conduct the kind of research their professions and employers expect them to conduct. When our best scholars are shackled to weak tools, what can we expect but debatable outcomes?

Without more substantive answers, I’m led to the conclusion that for the sake of marketers, academics, and policymakers, we need to re-engineer research. The realities of globalization demand new tools. It is time to create them.

 

Related articles
Filed Under: Fill Your Mind Tagged With: , , ,

Foreigners in China: Weibo vs. Reality

June 4, 2012 By

Reblogged from Sinostand:

Two weeks ago I had one of those occasional periods where I just didn’t want to be in China anymore. The nationalistic outcry against foreigners online stemming from the rapist, the rude cellist and the Beijing crackdown was palpable. Then CCTV’s Yang Rui added a “dose of poison” to it all with some insensitive comments, followed by a number of Chinese netizens telling Charlie Custer to shut up and get out of their country for his criticism of Yang.

Read more… 958 more words

There are a lot of things that can push living in China to the edge of bearability, but in-your-face nationalism and xenophobia is not one of them. If there is one thing that has made living in China these past 17 years so wonderful, it has been the people I meet. It never seems to get lost in a conversation that there is a difference between an individual and a government. Even at the height of anger over the Belgrade Embassy bombing, the vitriol was never personal: it was about a government's mistake, not the mistake of a nation. At the same time, it's incumbent on every one of us living as a guest on this soil to behave as a guest should, and not as an entitled drunken teenager on Grad Night at Disneyland. By the way, if you don't read Sinostand regularly, you should. Great stuff.
Filed Under: Fill Your Mind
March 27, 2012 By

Reblogged from strategicaffairswa:

Pictures like this make clear that China is the country most threatened by North Korean missiles, and thus have the most to lose if North Korea goes rogue. China is undoubtedly doing something to keep this from happening, but what?
Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Event: The Massification of Chinese Education

February 19, 2012 By

In the Hutong
Shrinking the Elephant Arm
1341 hrs

If you are in the Midwest this week and have an interest in China’s education system, you may want to stop by the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University – Bloomington. The Research Center for Chinese Politics and Business is continuing their colloquium series with a talk by Dr. Susan Blum on the Massification of China’s Higher Education System: The Consequences for China’s Youth. Dr. Blum, who serves as Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, has spent some time over here and has put together a talk that will inform the debates around “Tiger Moms” and over the future of higher education in both China and the U.S.

From the event’s flyer:

From a low of approximately 3% just two decades ago to almost 25% in 2006, higher education is no longer an elite and rare good, but is increasingly “massified.” Such independent pursuit of limited opportunities has consequences for the nature of youth and the very meaning of childhood. Though the number of youth has been stabilizing because of China’s birth policies, the competition for entry into the expanding programs of higher education remains fierce. Debates about education often reveal debates about human and social ideals. As Mao and others showed, the very nature of education has the effect of changing society. Chinese intellectuals knew this a century ago, as New Youth drove reform; the current situation is both similar and different in instructive ways. We find enduring centralization and increasing privatization; social and individual goals; and focus on international competition.

The event is free and open to the public, so if you are up that way, please stop by. I’m hoping she comes out to Beijing to give her talk.

(Full disclosure – I’m on the advisory board of the RCCPB.)

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Deconstructing China’s Nationalists

January 18, 2012 By

To Screw Foreigners by Geremie R. Barmé

In an essay from 15 years ago that remains one of the best background pieces on Chinese nationalism that I have ever read, professor Jeremy Barmé of the Australian National University delves into the historical and philosophical underpinnings of this rising ethos.

There is a growing consensus among Beijing-watchers that nationalism has replaced economic development as the primary driver of domestic Chinese politics on the eve of a generational leadership transition. For that reason, there is no better time than now to dive beneath the surface of this phenomenon and understand it from the roots.

I read Barme’s piece with great interest. While I didn’t come away with any profound conclusions, I see what is happening today with somewhat greater clarity. It also helps peer behind the Red Rhetoric of Bo Xilai’s campaigns to see something older and more elemental at work.

Not a short read, but a great one.

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind, Insights and Ahas, Policy & Governance

Favorite Hutong Reads from Last Week

June 3, 2011 By

Spending the week catching up on work and writing and preparing a graduation ceremony for 88 Cub Scouts, so writing was a little sparse. I managed to get a little reading done around the edges, and this was a particularly good week, so I thought I’d share. Enjoy.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Hutong Reads 03/22/2011

March 22, 2011 By

  • China Tightens Electronic Censorship – NYTimes.com

    Russell Leigh Moses has the money quote: “The hard-liners have won the field, and now we are seeing exactly how they want to run the place,” said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing analyst of China’s leadership. “I think the gloves are coming off.”

    tags: china online regulation

  • US companies face policy hurdles in China – China.org.cn

    Interesting report provided the viewpoint you want is that of Fortune 500 companies doing business in China. Most of my clients are in that category, but I’ve also discovered that viewing the China operating environment through that filter does not offer many forward-looking insights.

    By contrast, the challenges that face SMBs and foreign entrepreneurs in China are massive, arguably more indicative of the regulatory climate as a whole, and are largely ignored by groups like AmCham and the U.S. China Business Council. The next time somebody wants to do some research on business attitudes in China, ask the little guys. You would be amazed how different the picture is.

    tags: china regulation foreign business fdi

  • Mobile brands top Chinese charts: News from Warc.com

    Provoking article, and I have a soft spot for R3, but I’m not sure what it all means. In the end, what is engagement worth, and does the survey really work in the Chinese cultural context?

    tags: china brands research

  • New Chinese Five-Year Plan – Accenture Article

    Worthy take on the new five year plan. Why do I think Accenture is moving into the corporate communications business? Read the last section.

    tags: china plan economy communications

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Hutong Reads 03/21/2011

March 21, 2011 By

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

The Best Story Wins

February 21, 2011 By

A thought provoker from Joseph Nye’s December article in Foreign Affairs:

Conventional wisdom holds that the state with the largest army prevails, but in the information age, the state (or the nonstate actor) with the best story may sometimes win.

Allow me to revise that for business:

Conventional wisdom holds that the competitor with the best products prevails, but in the information age, the competitor with the best story may sometimes win.

Just as strategic communications is increasingly important as a means of national power, corporate strategic communications should be a competitive weapon, a game-changer, not just news releases, press conferences, and spin.

Blessed few western companies understand that, and I’ve yet to find a Chinese company that does.

 

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Consumer Price Spot Check

February 7, 2011 By

So the Hutong Secretary went to Jingkelong in Tianzhu to buy some eggs this morning. A five-dozen egg bulk pack set us back RMB 66, or around $10.02. The same eggs, USDA inspected, would have cost us RMB 65 at Vons in California, delivered to our home.

Not a big deal, but an interesting anecdotal indicator.

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

The Best of the Peking Review, January 2011

February 7, 2011 By

From our free-book-fixated sister blog The Peking Review, here is a list from among the January reviews that Silicon Hutong readers might find interesting:

Affairs of State: The Interagency and National Security

Communist China’s Policy Toward Laos: A Case Study 1954-1967

Contemporary Chinese Views of Europe

Current Studies in Japanese Law

Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism

India as a New Global Leader

Managing a Changing Relationship (China and Japan)

Pacific Currents

Whither Strategic Communications?

Why Russian Policy is Failing in Asia

Filed Under: Craft, Fill Your Mind, Media Hutong, Peking Review, Plowshares and Pruning Hooks

Not All Chinese Real Estate is Equal

February 4, 2011 By

In the Hutong
Waiting for guests
1203 hrs.

The question of whether China’s real estate market is overvalued or not is a recurring theme in the regions business media. The most recent example is an article in MarketWatch by Chris Oliver, which quotes Forensic Asia managing director Gillem Tulloch as saying “the bubble will likely burst sometime in the next year.”

You can debate Mr. Tulloch’s prognostications, as well as of his wisdom in using dark windows and Google Earth as evidentiary sources to support his thesis. My problem with the entire debate is that most analysts, foreigners in particular, lump all Chinese property into a single amorphous mass when analyzing value.

This is not a mistake an analyst would make in other real estate markets of the size, and for good reason. When not accompanied by major economic crises, real estate markets are naturally cyclical. In each of these cycles, some properties, by dint of either size, price, or location, tend to fall faster when drops occur, and rise more slowly when recoveries begin. Prices of condominiums and homes in less desirable neighborhoods, for example, fall faster and further – and recover more slowly – than single-family homes in more exclusive locations.

While 15 years ago the case could be made but there was not much differentiation among Chinese properties, that is no longer the case. Even a casual jaunt though China’s largest cities reveals vast differences among both residential and commercial properties. The variances of design, construction quality, and management among new apartment developments in Beijing or Shanghai that would surpass even the gap between a Harlem walk-up and a Park Avenue penthouse.

In addition, a clear dividing line must be drawn between commercial and residential real estate. Even in China, these markets move to different rhythms, often to the frustration of developers and managers of large, multiuse properties. And, as my friend Bill Bishop would happily point out, to compare the dynamics of the real estate markets in Beijing and a third-tier city in Gansu is a specious exercise: by definition properties in those cities appeal to buyers in vastly different circumstances.

It would be useful, as the debate around when and how far Chinese real estate prices will fall proceeds, for all of us to begin to divide Chinese real estate into types and classes better suited for analysis. While this may still not adequately explain the disconnect between rental rates and property prices, it will take us a long step closer to understanding how and why this market behaves as it does.

Update: A superb entry by Ranjit Lall in the FT’s “beyond brics” blog explains why the Chinese Property Bubble meme may well be a myth.

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

What are the key skills needed to succeed working for a company in China as a foreigner?

January 21, 2011 By

It is coming to that time of year again, and my email box is beginning to fill with resumes and queries from young expatriates who are looking to find their fortunes, or at least a job, in the wild, wild East.

Over on Quora I dropped in an answer to the question "What are the key skills needed to succeed working for a company in China as a foreigner?"

My answer fairly sums up what I think are the salient skills and attitudes required to get hired in China's increasingly competitive job market.

Check out the link below.

What are the key skills needed to succeed working for a company in China as a foreigner?

Filed Under: Fill Your Mind

Hu comes to the U.S. with a pre-approved script

January 16, 2011 By

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

“For us, China’s decision-making on North Korea was always a black box. There was the party, the Foreign Ministry and the military,” recalled Victor Cha, who served as a Korea expert on the National Security Council in the Bush administration and traveled to Beijing for now-suspended six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Chinese diplomats “are the ones that show up at the table, but I don’t think they steer overall policy.”

Read more at www.washingtonpost.com
The same could be said for Hu in Washington. Make no mistake, any position he takes, any messages he delivers, any concessions he grants have been discussed and vetted before he got on the plane. This is a stark contrast with U.S. foreign policy, where the President makes the deal, then comes back to Congress for approval.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bm4kr
Filed Under: Fill Your Mind Tagged With: , , , ,
« Older Posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 5,661 other followers