China Speakers Bureau: December 2008

CCP cadres: capabilities over connections - Victor Shih

China's communist party (CCP) is revamping its way to select its cadres, asking for capabilities rather than connections, writes assistant professor Victor Shih in his weblog.

According to a new initiative of Hu Jintao, cadre promotion is now tied to an official's ability to handle sudden shocks, like earthquakes. The problem in the past is that performance was tied to things that good connections can get you, like growth or investment. Thus, those performance indicators really did not test how capable an official was, just how connected he was.

Problematic performance during the earthquake in Sichuan and incidents in Tibet and Xinjiang by a part of the communist cadres has triggered off the new policies, writes Shih.

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Victor Shih is a speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. Are you interested in having him at one of your conferences? Do let us know.

FDI is not declining, but changing - Amy Sommers

Amy Sommers
by Fons1 via FlickrForeign Direct Investment (FDI) has been supporting China's economic reform, but since 2007 its character has been changing, not declining, writes Shanghai-based lawyer Amy Sommers in the Financial Times.

Despite this phenomenal growth – or perhaps in part because of it – some observers have wondered whether FDI into China is slowing and shifting to greener pastures, with India, Vietnam and Brazil frequently mentioned as alternative destinations, each of which offers its own compelling reasons for investment. But China’s story is not so much about becoming unattractive for FDI as it is about its leaders’ concern that the country could be loved to excess.

Unlike the common assumption only a small part of China's FDI came from Europe and the US, over 70 percent came from other Asian countries and regions, including Taiwan. In December 2007 the government introduced new guidelines, the foreign investment uncatalogue, steering those stream of capital into high-end manufacturing, R&D, regions and industries that are high on the central government's political agenda. Amy Sommers:

The story about China’s FDI is not so much about declining FDI as it is about the challenge of attracting the desired type of FDI. And in that regard, the glass looks half empty. It remains to be seen whether or not 2009 will bring an improvement.

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Amy Sommers is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you are interested in having her as a speaker at your meeting, do get in touch.

Roy Graff joins the China Speakers Bureau

Roy Graff

Roy Graff, one of the leading voices on China's tourism and hospitality industry has joined the China Speakers Bureau.
Roy holds a bachelor's degree in Chinese and Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Roy has made his career in travel and tourism business development with an emphasis on China. He has a deep understanding of China's culture and business practices developed from academia, public and private sector work since 1994. He is an experienced travel marketing and distribution senior executive involved in e-commerce, online travel and hospitality. Since 2005, he combines consultation on China's tourism sector with several travel and hospitality ventures in China and the flagship forum on China's Travel Industry, "China the Future of Travel" held annually at the World Travel Market in London.
Roy keeps a blog on developments in China's travel and tourism sector which is the most comprehensive resource on the subject, since January 2006. In August 2008 he updated the China Outbound Travel Handbook and made it available free of charge through the ChinaContact Tourism Network. Roy is also a Director of China Business Services and European Director of the China Venture Capital and Private Equity Forum London held annually since 2007. He is a founding member of the China Advisers Network (C.A.N), an association of leading China specialists and advisers from various disciplines in the UK.

Starbucks hit hard by tightfisted foreigners - Shaun Rein

Image via WikipediaStarbucks is one of the enterprises in China that is being hit hard by the global downturn, harder than others, writes Shaun Rein in Seeking Alpha, because they rely to a large degree on foreign customers. Rein, director of the China Market Research Group (CMR) has been one of the pundits refusing to accept the common feeling that China's is following a global trend downwards. But for the popular coffee house he has to make an exception, as for other high-end restaurants in Shanghai.
Business has been hard very hard, because two of the three key markets of Starbucks are foreigners, expats living in China's big cities, or visiting executives who used Starbucks as the replacement office.

As one waiter of a top foreign-focused restaurant in Xintiandi told me, "The Chinese are spending the same if not more than before. The foreigners are just not coming anymore or, if they do, are cutting back spending." This has been a sentiment echoed in interviews we have conducted with dining establishments throughout China, from small restaurants to expensive hotel restaurants in a Starwood (HOT) or Marriott (MAR).

As expected, in the long term (say the second half of 2009) Shaun Rein remains optimistic about China's economy.

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

Shaun Rein
by Fons1 via Flickr

Chinese consumers full of confidence - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein
by Fons1 via FlickrContrary to what Western media report, China's consumers are still going strong, writes Shaun Rein, director of the China Market Research Group (CMR) in Shanghai in Seeking Alpha. Consumers in the US might be in panic after so many lost saving of a life-time, Chinese consumers maintain a strong confidence in both their government and the country's financial institutions.

While increasing unemployment for workers in the export sector is something that we all need to look at from a moral and humanitarian standpoint, from purely a business one they do not count much for GDP consumption growth. Their salaries unfortunately are too low. The media is intent on making this a bigger story than it really is, I believe, to sell papers with great headlines. There was one the other day in a top tier daily something like, "China Business Confidence at All-Time Low".

Western media are wrongly projecting the fears at their home markets on China and its consumer middle class, Rein argues. The upcoming Chinese new year will be a moment to watch though:

Our research findings suggest that critical for the consumer sector is whether younger Chinese get the bonuses and salary increases during the Chinese New Year period that they expect. If they do not, expect retail sales to drop big-time in February.

But overall, consumer growth is going up very fast in China and Shaun Rein expects in 2009 a continued growth between 16-18 percent.

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

New CSB newsletter is out

Zhang Lijia
by Fons1 via FlickrToday we published the December newsletter of the China Speakers Bureau. For the readers of this weblog there might not be very much new, but we clustered for example all the links on our speakers' expectations on what China is going to do economically in 2009.
Further, the most-sought speakers for December, other news items and our second installment on how to pick the best speakers for your event. If you have not yet subscribed, you can read our newsletter here.

Anti-Chinese feelings on the rise in the US - Richard Kuslan

Richard Kuslan

A rising tide against China and imports from China, notes Richard Kuslan in the US, here in his weblog, triggered off by recalls of cars from China.

The animus towards China -- specifically imported products -- has never, in my lifetime, been as acute nor as widespread than it is today.
This article and the popular comments below it show the depth of contrary feeling. Chinese products are blamed for being injurious to human health, cheaply made, made with slave labor, anti-American, etc., requiring strict import regulation or even the outright ban of Chinese imports.

Indeed, the comments on the article in the weblog of the New York Times are rather revealing.

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How delicate are the relations between China and the US? A question that become more important now the US will enter a new era with the new president Barack Obama. Do you need leading voices on the Sino-US relations? Ask one of our speakers at the China Speakers Bureau.

China's banks under threat of rescue plan - Victor Shih

Victor Shih

In a decade China's banks have changed from government counters for handing out money into professional financial institutions. But the recent four trillion Renminbi rescue plan might push those banks ten years back in history, writes assistant professor Victor Shih in the Wall Street Journal.

A year ago, many of us were ready to be impressed with China's banking system. To be sure, banks were still mainly state-owned, and the Chinese Communist Party continued to be omnipresent. However, the average bank managers were extremely risk conscious, and regulators from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) swooped down on bank branches conducting surprise inspections every so often. Bankers were extremely hesitant to make uncollateralized loans to any firm except for the largest corporations.

Now the banks got a central role in the plans by the central government to use four trillion Rmb in funding to revive the economy. Most of the funding does not come from the coffers of the central govertm but has to be provided by local governments or - indeed - commercial banks. And banks have to follow the lead of the central government, writes Shih. They might be under threat when the economy deteriorates.

Meanwhile, if the economy worsens in the first quarter the government may be tempted to abandon prudent regulation altogether. Beijing could order the CBRC to disregard risk targets or even abolish the CBRC. This would plunge China back into the old days when the only risks that bankers faced were political ones.
Without a global financial crisis, the global financial community might have criticized such a giant step back toward the planned economy. The criticism might have at least triggered some debate in China. However, with the rest of the world suffering a severe credit crunch that has seen free-market governments bailing out their own financial institutions, there are few people left who can credibly criticize China's actions.

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Victor Shih is an leading voice on China's financial reform and a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Are you interested in having him as a speaker? Do let us know.

The online crisis indicator - Marc van der Chijs

Marc van der Chijs

Online gaming guru Marc van Chijs, CEO of the Spill Group Asia, analyzed growth of his online games. While picking up signs that an economic crisis is really bothering the Shanghainese, he found in the gaming figures some indication. In his weblog:

This week we were analyzing the traffic figures on our Chinese online game sites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com, when we noted a strange effect. During weekdays there was hardly any growth on our portals, but on weekends the growth was similar to what we were used to. We looked a bit deeper into this and may have found a reason for this: staff in companies play less online games during working hours (normally we see a spike in traffic around 11:30 AM and from 4 PM onwards).

Why? Likely people are getting more afraid of the effects of the crisis and focus more on their work in order not to run the risk of being laid off. The effect started somewhere around November but seems to be getting more pronounced. I did not do any statistical analysis (and also do not plan to do this), but it seems like an indicator that some Chinese are changing their online behavior because of the crisis.

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Marc van der Chijs, also co-founder of the successful video hosting company Tudou, is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you are interested in having him as a speaker, do get in touch.

No fast recovery real estate expected - Sam Crispin

Sam Crispin

Despite stiff support by the government for the real estate sector, restoration of the confidence among the buyer might take a while, real estate guru Sam Crispin tells the Financial Times. The central government in Beijing announced yesterday measure to ease getting credit for property developers and reduced the lock-up period for house owners from five to two years. Within the lock-up period owners would have to pay heavy taxes to discourage speculation.
But that does not mean a speedy recovery of the heavy hit real estate industry, says Sam Cripin of the Shanghai-based Crispins Property Investment Management, who points out that three years of stifling measures are only now coming to an end.

Ultimately it will all come down to sentiment: when buyers can see that there is a chance of prices going up again instead of down . . . and we are probably at least three months away from the return of that kind of confidence, maybe longer," he said.
Other real estate market analysts said they thought measures might be more effective than previous moves but would begin to boost the market only in the second half of 2009. "One thing about the property market is there is a limit to what government can do to either slow it down or speed it up," said Mr Crispin.

Update: Meanwhile back in Shenyang, the local government is making the best out of the real estate crisis. (h/t Danwei)

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Sam Crispin is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you are interested in having him as a speaker, do get in touch.

China's internet is different - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo
by Fons1 via FlickrChina's internet is profoundly different from the internet in the US, Korea or Japan, Kaiser Kuo explains to Thomas Crampton.
More than 80 percent of the internet users in China uses IM, preferably through Tencent's QQ, much more than anywhere in the world. They still prefer BBS's because it's anonymous and the country is more video intensive than any other. Gaming is big and big-scale internet cafe's provide 40 percent of the internet users an alternative for home-surfing.

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Kaiser Kuo is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you want him to share his insights, do get in touch.

Crisis in China? Not anytime soon - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff
by Fons1 via FlickrChina is not going to implode under massive unrest, anarchy and protest anytime soon, says Tom Doctoroff, CEO, Greater China, J. Walter Thompson in the Huffington Post.

At least short-term, China will not melt down or erupt in protest. Six, twelve or eighteen months of 5% growth is not the stuff of anarchy. Today's demonstrations, increasing in frequency, are decentralized, a function of discrete local grievances, unfair land appropriation and unpaid wages. Taxi strikes notwithstanding, urban centers remain calm.

While the situation looks more challenging in the long term, China's government is positioned very well to deal with the current downturn and has done up to now the right things, writes Doctoroff.

The Chinese, consistent with Confucian imperatives, expect a benign government to pragmatically protect the peoples' interests and, at the same time, project empathy for the plight of the disadvantaged. China's Standing Committee knows, in 2009, a harmonious society will be maintained with equal doses of economic stimulus and humanity, preferably heartfelt.
The Party, for the time being, is managing affairs reasonably well. (An added cushion: the majority of Chinese blame the financial crisis on Western policy makers, not Communist mandarins.) Tax rates have been lowered, commercial loan regulations have been loosened and infrastructure projects, designed to reduce the burden of the poor, have been initiated. Labor and land transfer laws are being reformed to protect, respectively, part-time employees and peasants. Growth will lurch, but not nose-dive.

More at the Huffington Post.
More debate on China's expected soft landing here, triggered off by Shaun Rein.

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Tom Doctoroff is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you are interested in having him at your conference, panel of board meeting, do let us know.

Adding 'history' as a topic

Jasper Becker

At the China Speakers Bureau we are reluctant to add too many new categories to our website: too many subdivision make searching often more complicated than easy. And having too many topics with only one speaker is also not a good idea.
But on popular demand we have now added the category 'history'. A few of our speakers were already active in this field and with the arrival of eminent writer Jasper Becker who have almost have a dozen. So, from today, we have also our leading voices on China's recent and less recent history organized.

China preparing for a soft landing in 2009 - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein
by Fons1 via FlickrChina's consumer spending is going strong and the country is heading for a soft landing from its economic troubles in six months from now, says Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai in an interview with China Radio International.
Despite all gloomy predictions, consumer spending in China keeps on going strong. Compared to the US its influence on the overall economy is still limited, but when new government policies kick in in six months time, Rein expects a soft landing of the Chinese economy, while the US and Europe are heading for a prolonged recession.
Tune in for CRI for the wide-ranging interview.

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Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you are interested in having him on your board meeting, conference or panel, do get in touch.

Social change documented - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Two very different and rather entertaining interviews with Zhang Lijia, documenting the writer who is documenting a changing China. On the new trend of books on the new China. Interviewers are Xu Xi and Lawrence Gray.

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Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you want to retain her for a conference or panel, do let us know.

Old Love Lane up for the hammer? - Paul French

Paul French
by Fons1 via FlickrPaul French reports at his weblog about the Shanghai sledgehammers threatening the Old Love Lane, now Wujiang Lu, up for "redevelopment".

People voting with their wallets for tasty local food rather than western fast food. But the builders are encroaching - already some of the old houses have been destroyed and a couple of non-descript blocks of nonsense put in their place. It seems the rest of the street may follow as the relentless McDonaldisation 'progresses'.

More at his weblog.

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Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau, commenting on contemporary issues. If you are interested in having him as a speaker, do let us know.

Most sought speakers - December 2008

Zhang Lijia
by Fons1 via FlickrZhang Lijia became in December the fastest mover among our corp of speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. She is, at the second place, actually the first to really come close to Shaun Rein, who retains the first place.
Jasper Becker - who only joined our service this month - appears already on the 10th position of our monthly top-10. Other newcomers in this top-10 are Rupert Hoogewerf, who is celebrating his tenth year of Rich lists and William Overholt.
Not surprisingly, with only a few exceptions, interest in speakers with a strong economic background is paramount as people are trying to make sense out of what the current economic downturn means for China, and what China could mean for the world. We note very different opinions among our speakers - not surprising so early in the financial crisis.
If you are interested in following the adventures of our speakers also in a more conventional newsletter, do subscribe here. Our next newletter is due very soon.

Then, the official China Speakers Bureau top-10 (with November in brackets)

Howard French
by Fons1 via Flickr

Next week: CSB-newsletter is due

William Overholt
by Fons1 via FlickrNext week the December 2008 China Speakers Bureau Newsletter is due, only the second in our short life. Some of the subjects:

most-sought speakers for December
China Predictions for 2009
CSB-speakers in the news
"Engage China" speaking tour by Lonnie Hodge in the US
Our "A Changing China" book project
Tips for selecting a great speaker

If you have not yet subscribed to our newsletter, please do so here.

Mirella Visser joins the China Speakers Bureau

Mirella Visser

The Asian economic crisis in the 1990s, the reunification of Hong Kong with China and the collapse of the Barings bank happened within Mirella Visser's tenure as senior manager at the ING Group in Asia. From Hong Kong she led as a member of the management board ING's business development in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. After ten years with ING she led the KPMG Asia deks from 2000 and managed the integration of international financial services companies.
At the China Speakers Bureau we are very happy to have Mirella Visser as a speaker on board and we are sure whe will make a difference at the many events she will be attending.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

CCP cadres: capabilities over connections - Victor Shih

FDI is not declining, but changing - Amy Sommers

Friday, December 26, 2008

Roy Graff joins the China Speakers Bureau

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Starbucks hit hard by tightfisted foreigners - Shaun Rein

Monday, December 22, 2008

Chinese consumers full of confidence - Shaun Rein

Sunday, December 21, 2008

New CSB newsletter is out

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Anti-Chinese feelings on the rise in the US - Richard Kuslan

Friday, December 19, 2008

China's banks under threat of rescue plan - Victor Shih

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The online crisis indicator - Marc van der Chijs

No fast recovery real estate expected - Sam Crispin

China's internet is different - Kaiser Kuo

Crisis in China? Not anytime soon - Tom Doctoroff

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Adding 'history' as a topic

China preparing for a soft landing in 2009 - Shaun Rein

Monday, December 15, 2008

Social change documented - Zhang Lijia

Old Love Lane up for the hammer? - Paul French

Most sought speakers - December 2008

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Next week: CSB-newsletter is due

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Mirella Visser joins the China Speakers Bureau

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