I first went to China in 1984, commuted every six weeks or so from 1995 – 1997, and have lived and worked in Beijing for just a tad less than 17 years. Wei Xin is a Beijing native with extensive offshore experience. We have been working together on Chinese legal and business issues for more than 20 years.
Change, usually rapid, is the norm in China. It creates opportunities and challenges at all levels of society but even living in the midst of it it is sometimes hard to keep up. The pace of change is particularly difficult for foreign business because much of the available China information is out of date, at least to some extent. Some of it, of course is just wrong. In the legal area, many of the changes are predictable if a longer view is taken of the developing system, more or less natural evolutions to match the changes that have, are or will take place.
China is going to continue to develop as it sees best for itself. Any engagement with China has to be on the basis that China must be accepted as it is, not as you would like it to be. If that is done, and done carefully with good advice and support, China has many opportunities.
We will use this area to post on changes that we see that affect foreign business or just find interesting. We hope that you will find the information posted here useful.
Graham Brown, Beijing