virtualreview

china: news and opinion

Latest stories from All Roads 


06 Nov 09 visit What to Make of Obama’s Upcoming Trip to China. The other day a few of my students and I were commenting on the fact that in a week Obama would be coming to town, and that unlike previous administrations, the first official meeting of new US leadership was occurring on Chinese soil.  That thi...
05 Nov 09 visit Take Part in the Green Supply Chain Survey Following my presentation (click here to view) yesterday at the Supply Chain Council’s 2009 CHaINA conference, I received the below email inviting companies to participate in their annual green supply chain survey. Working closely with the council...
04 Nov 09 visit China’s Singular Story Last week while catching up on TED ‘09 videos, I came across Chimamanda Adichie’s presentation, The danger of a single story. It was a presentation that essentially was baout how we oftem times make judgements based on knowing a single point...
02 Nov 09 visit Class Update and Call For Partnerships For those of you who have been wondering why All Roads has been lite on posts lately, I apologize.  As you may recall I am now a Visiting Professor at CEIBS and last week I had 36 mid semester progress reports submitted for grading. Overall.  I cann...
01 Nov 09 visit Upcoming Event: CHaINA ‘09 Just a quick heads up for those of you in the logistics/ supply chain field who will be in Shanghai this week. On Wednesday the 4th, the Supply Chain Council’s yearly event CHaINA will be going on all day at the Zhongshan Park Renaissance Hotel, and...
29 Oct 09 visit Developing a Sustainable China Business Model Over the last couple of weeks, I have been out speaking to different groups about sustainability in China.  For me it is a topic that goes far beyond polar bears and solar panels, and when presenting recently on the characteristics of a sustainabl...
25 Oct 09 visit It’s All About Hope and Opportunity in China Earlier in the year while a few of my interns were inbetween assignments, I tasked them to get out of the office and do some street interviews.  Now, executing street interviews was nothing new for them, but instead of taking out a video camera and askin...
22 Oct 09 visit Google Infringes on Chinese IP. Ohh.. This Could Get Interesting. Walk down any street in Shanghai right now and you will find knockoff book vendors who have loaded up on the most recent titles.  It is the latest offering for an already saturated market of goods (DVDs, bags, watches, pens, etc), and becoming yet anothe...
20 Oct 09 visit UBS Lays Out Their China’s Big Four Themes. Forgets One Working through my daily dose of analyst reports and journal articles, I came to UBS’s recent release The Four Big China Themes from Jon Anderson where he lays out the bank’s position on four of the key trends that they are following in...
16 Oct 09 visit Who Worse? Chinese Drywall Manufacturers or American Insurance Companies When the stories of Chinese drywall hit the wires earlier this year, I made a conscience decision to stay away from the explosive nature of the problem because, simply put, this was yet another example of where firms sourcing from china made huge error in...
13 Oct 09 visit Back From Holiday. Well.. welcome back everyone. Hope you all had a good holiday, and enjoyed the show a couple weeks back! Working on getting back into the saddle after nearly 3 weeks on the run. Gotta be honest, getting on the plane back was difficult, but alas Air...
26 Sep 09 visit On Holiday. Back in 2 Weeks. Just a short note to let you all know that I am off the the next couple of weeks for a couple weeks of R&R Will be back after the 10th.
21 Sep 09 visit China Logistics News: September 21, 2009 Logistics China tightens safety checks on mail ahead of National Day Haier Forms Rural Distributor Subsidiary China is changing the face of the global freight industry for good Demand to soar for cold storage Port China Jan.-Aug. Ship Orders Down...
21 Sep 09 visit A New Perspective on Why China Should Catalyze Domestic Consumption Wei Gu writes an interesting commentary on the recent decision of the Obama adminstration to tax Chinese tire imports in her piece For Chinese exporters, the grass is greener abroad. That it is just one more reason why the Chinese need to focus on...
18 Sep 09 visit US Chamber Slashes Obama’s Decision on Tires Last week, when President Obama signed off on the new tariffs on imported tires from China, an immediate response from China followed.  In short, the action take was protectionist, without merit, and they had the data to support it.  It was a reacti...
18 Sep 09 visit Chengdu Investment News: September 18 1. Comparing urban education competitiveness, Chengdu ranking fourth The study report on Educational Competitiveness of Chinese Cities released on August 30th by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that among 15 deputy provincial cities in China,...
17 Sep 09 visit Five Pitfalls of Metals-Based Sourcing Earlier this week I received an email titled Five Pitfalls of Metals-Based Sourcing from old friend Lisa Reisman of Metalminer (her husband Jason writes Spendmatters) where she laid out what she sees are the five essential mistakes people make when...
16 Sep 09 visit Expo Makeover: French Concession While I largely have found the Expo related construction and makeover activities a noise driven annoyance, a recent walk along Fuxing Road uncovered a 2 square block area of villa redevelopments that were quite amazing. Literally rows of houses have been...
16 Sep 09 visit TEDA Investment News: September 2009 NOVOZYMES TO MAKE TIANJIN ITS GLOBAL PROCUTION CENTER Novozymes (China) Biotechnology Co., Ltd. will soon expand production again in TEDA to build Tianjin into its global strategic production base. A highlight of the local biopharmaceutical industry,...
15 Sep 09 visit China’s Demographic Roller Coaster to Peak by 2030 A couple weeks back I attended a FCC meeting (Note: FCC has some of the best speaking events in China.. on China) where a UC Irvine/ Fudan professor of Sociology spoke of the issues of China’s population. It was billed primarily as a “One...
15 Sep 09 visit China Logistics News: September 14, 2009 Logistics China says to let foreigners invest more in services China Logistics Value Down 0.8% in H1 Port Dalian port grows, plans oil tank Hanjin’s ship repair yard gets Chinese nod Shenzhen shipments rise boosts confidence Tianjin vows to be...
14 Sep 09 visit Looking To Hong Kong’s Skyline for Signs of Recovery While some (including myself) have been questioning some of the more upbeat economic rports lately, the Earth Times carried Clouds of pollution in Hong Kong seen as smoke signals of recovery Unfortunately, the following passage pretty much tells it...
11 Sep 09 visit Real Estate in China is (a) Stable (b) Turning Up or (c) Ready to Pop The recent UBS report, China Question of the Week: Is The Property Sector Recovery Losing Its Steam?, attempts to address a concern many have in China.  Whether or not we are seeing the top… or bottom.. of the market. It is a report that, true t...
09 Sep 09 visit Is Anyone Shipping Christmas Orders? Over the last 24 hours, I have been having a bit of a back and forth on email with a analyst in the US who sent me a relatively upbeat report on US inbound shipments: Specifically, from July to August, there was a 1% increase in the number of U.S....
08 Sep 09 visit Making it in China’s Middle Market Entering the Chinese mid-market segment: key to long-term success?, by Heiko Gebauer, Thomas Fischer and Elgar Fleisch, is an academic report that I found interesting lately while studying a 2nd tier market plan, and as a followup to a recent conversation...
08 Sep 09 visit Logistics News: September 7, 2009 Logistics Logistics Investment Plan to Boost Chongqing’s Infrastructure China Auto Logistics Inc. to Present at the Rodman & Renshaw Annual Global Investment Conference New Report Just Published China transportation equipment manufacturing industr...
08 Sep 09 visit China’s Statistics Books are Cooked Following up on my recent post Following China’s Path of Least Statistical Resistance, I came across the recent Foreign Policy article  How China Cooks Its Books, and was pointed in the direction of another article in Caijing (h/t Ian) Is China̵...
07 Sep 09 visit Shanghai Census or Expo Security? Friday night, while hosting a dinner party, one of my friends was stopped in my lobby by a member of Shanghai’s finest and asked to present her passport. minutes later, “officials” who appeared to be with the census bureau were at my...
03 Sep 09 visit European Union Chamber of Commerce in China Report on China. As a blogger, there are times where I feel an urge.  An urge to be honest, let it all go, and get something off my chest. Ususally I don’t.  I restrain myself for the greater good .. The EU Chamber on the other hand has jsut released a 600 pa...
02 Sep 09 visit Collegiate Sports In China. A Slam Dunk or Home Run for Someone Growing up in St. Louis Missouri, playing sports was just part of life.
02 Sep 09 visit Global Restocking and China This afternoon, Jonathan Anderson from UBS sent out two messages related to “restocking and China” that will prove interesting to readers who are looking for the bottom of this economic cycle. The first was a research note (email me for the...
01 Sep 09 visit China’s Economic Recovery Not Sustainable? Andy Xie is a man who has been known to call it how he sees it, and while he had focused more and more vocal on China’s asset bubbles in the last several months, he has also be looking at the overall economy and been pointing out where things could...
01 Sep 09 visit China Logistics News: September 1, 2009 Logistics Cosco Pacific Sells Logistics Stake; Profit Falls Is the freight market recovering? AMB Opens New Logistics Facility in Dalian Redhead launches new China service Port Rapid expansion of port cities Tianjin Port Development posts losses of...
31 Aug 09 visit Chengdu Investment News: August 31, 2009 1. VXI US to set up western call center in Chengdu The global one-stop call center solution provider VXI US had settled in the Tianfu Software Park, learnt the journalist on August 16th. It is introduced that the size of the Chengdu call center will...
28 Aug 09 visit Xi’an After a 7 year gap,  I made my second trip to Xi’an, the provincial capital of Shanxi province.
27 Aug 09 visit Book Review: Factory Girls While down in HK a couple weeks back, I picked up Leslie Chang’s book Factory Girls.  It was one of the books that I had been waiting to find an opportunity to read, and it was worth the wait.  A book of interviews, observations, and person...
27 Aug 09 visit Are You Optimistic About China? Over the last 6 months, the question “Are you optimistic about China?” has been coming up on a regular basis. For some who ask me this question it is a economic question – can china weather the current economic cycle, while for others...
25 Aug 09 visit China Logistics News: August 25, 2009 Logistics K+N secures Shanghai deal Macquarie and Everbright Plan Joint China Funds Tibet’s largest logistics center starts operation Warehouse operators expand in China Port Yantian port opens first inland depot Water New air/sea links planned...
24 Aug 09 visit China’s Consumption Challendge For those who are looking to gain some insights into China’s consumers, I highly suggest watching this clip where Johnathan Wetzel asks four senior economists to comment on the following questions: Why do Chinese consumers spend so little relative...
21 Aug 09 visit The price is….. right? M&A Valuation in China - Guest Post by Jay Boyle (Founder and Managing Director of Expat CFO) In a New York Times DealBook article run earlier this week, “Tunneling to True Profit in China,” Mark Dixon, a founder of M&A consultancy the1.com, details some of the trials...
21 Aug 09 visit Guangzhou’s New Train Station. Designed for Grandure! Like to thank Ian for sending this Youtube clip along of the new Guangzhou train station.  Perhaps one of the busiest in the world, this new station is HUGE.  Apologies for those of you behind the firewall, but for those of you who are able to view̷...
19 Aug 09 visit Sustainability and Responsible Leadership Course Ideas Needed Starting next week, I will take on a new role. I will be a Visiting Professor teaching a project course on Sustainability and Responsible Leadership at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). As a required class for the 200+ MBA...
19 Aug 09 visit More on China’s Commodity Spending Spree A quick follow up to my post last week  China’s Raw Materials Markets Send Prices Soaring where I took a brief look at the underlying China dynamics that could be catalyzing their purchases of commodities. It is an issue that I have yet o see anyth...
18 Aug 09 visit China Logistics News: August 18, 2009 Logistics Beijing will be center of 1-8 hour national transport circle by 2012 Research Report of Chinese Cold-chain Logistic Industry, 2009 Port Air Pudong Airport bonded area approved Chengdu Shuangliu Int’l Airport shut down due to power...
17 Aug 09 visit A Guide to China’s Indirect Taxes Wanted to alert everyone to a new Ernst and Young report on Indirect TAxin that is worth the read for everyone.  It is a subject that I have covered here at times when the policies were changing, and this is one of the best reports I have seen to date o...
17 Aug 09 visit Chengdu Investment News: August 17, 2009 1. To establish corporate headquarter in Chengdu, company could be granted highest government reward of 20 million yuan To establish corporate headquarters in Chengdu, companies could be granted the highest government reward of 20 million yuan. On...
14 Aug 09 visit Following China’s Path of Least Statistical Resistance As an 21 year old undergraduate studying statistics back in the Great State of Missouri, I learned early on that statistics was in many was part art and science.That, while there could be a positive correlation between two sets of data in a vacuum, the...
14 Aug 09 visit Poorly Designed, and Then Made in China While it has been 2 years since Lead Paint Barbie hit the store shelves, I have seen a flurry of related activity over the last two weeks. From books on “Made in China”, to two Posts at China Law Blog The Six (Not Five) Keys To China Quality...
11 Aug 09 visit Logistics News Roundup: August 11, 2009 Logistics IBM to double consulting staff in China FedEx Expands Freight Forwarding Presence Globally China improves transportation networks Port Shanghai port data sparks rise in shipping stocks China port throughput up 12.9% in July Shanghai Port, China...
10 Aug 09 visit China’s Raw Materials Markets Send Prices Soaring. Why? A lot of discussion surrounding the recent metals/ materials pricing volatility, and China’s role in driving that volatility. Many of the recent reports I have seen seem to indicate that the purchases (and imports) of raw materials are a good sign,...

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