Xiaomi recently won a case in US federal court to block implementation of a rule that would have prevented US persons from investing in their stock.  The announcement of this rule had initially sent their stock plummeting.

Xiaomi and Luokung, another company facing this rule, have now given other similar companies a playbook for pushing back.  We talk with Tim O’Toole, a white collar defense and international trade lawyer at Miller & Chevalier.  Tim has brought numerous cases before the same judge in federal court as the Xiaomi and Luokung cases, and he walks us through the rulings and what comes next.

Enjoy!

On the heels of the Shanghai Automotive Show, Bill Russo of Automobility joins us for a deep dive on the automotive industry and which types of players are likely to be winners and losers in the biggest global markets - China and the US. 

Our latest deep dive on China tech.  We look at the China semiconductor industry and the challenges it faces as it seeks to bring more of the value chain home locally and rely less on foreign suppliers.  A bridge too far?  Have a listen and find out.

Guests:

Stewart Randall, Director of Operations and Global Lead for Electronics and Embedded at Intralink in Shanghai.

Nalin Balan, Head of Sales and Business Development for Reality AI in San Francisco and former Head of IP Sales for Asia Pacific at Cadence Design Systems.

An In-depth conversation with Ker Gibbs, President of Amcham Shanghai

In this episode we lean on the experience of 3 foreigner businesspeople - Rich Robinson, Joanne Wood, and Dan Krassenstein - who each spend decades living in China.  A wide ranging discussion on favorite China personal experiences

In this episode we lean on the experience of 3 foreigner businesspeople - Rich Robinson, Joanne Wood, and Dan Krassenstein - who each spend decades living in China.  A wide ranging discussion on favorite China personal experiences, lessons to adapt to doing business in China, and how they see cross-border trade and investment trends with China shaping up the future.

In the wake of the recent IPO, we interview three early members of the Airbnb China team on how Airbnb found and stuck to its core advantages against an array of local competitors. And how it managed to emerge as a rare Western tech startup success story in China.

Guest lineup: 

Robert Hao, Co-Founder and COO of Hype, Ltd.; Director of Business Operations and Strategy, HCO, Head of Supply at Airbnb 2012-2017 

Bryan Huang, Founder at Annabai Technology; IT Manager at Airbnb 2015-2018 

Ziyang David Fan, Head of Digital Trade at World Economic Forum; Senior Legal Counsel at Airbnb 2015-2017

When you look at the actual origin of investment flows, China is now the biggest investor in Indonesia. And two macro trends are currently at play in the trade relationship. Chinese (and other) manufacturers are diversifying out of China and finding relatively young and affordable Indonesian labor attractive especially as other countries like Vietnam become saturated and more expensive. And Indonesia as we know has become a major potential market for an investment opportunities by Chinese technology companies, and Chinese capital in general.

We talk with Liky Sutikno, Chair of the Indonesia Chamber of Commerce in China (Inacham) on this and other issues. Liky explains how Indonesia has been shifting its focus to use its abundant labor and natural resources to attract overseas investment on the condition that Indonesia does more and more value-added processing work, not just resource extraction and export.

We also dive into major trade zones and infrastructure projects and the role for Chinese players there. We further get into the role of the Chinese-Indonesian business community in bridging the two economies. And finally we discuss opportunities for Indonesia companies starting out in certain niche industries to expand into the Chinese market directly. Have a listen and please remember to subscribe on your favorite podcast channel.

We interview Lishuang Chen, Founder & CEO at A&J Consulting International.

On the challenges and opportunities for Chinese companies doing business in India. 

·       Branding – how are Chinese brands viewed in India in these tense political times?

·       Management styles – how much do Chinese companies localize and how do management styles need to adapt?

·       Regulatory challenges – how do Chinese companies navigate India’s historically difficult regulatory environment?

·       What has made Xiaomi in particular so successful and how is it seen today in many ways as a local brand not a Chinese brand?

·       As Chinese manufacturing companies diversify production out of their home base, how do Chinese companies recreate their manufacturing process and supplier ecosystem in India? 

Our Roundtable format continues with predictions for whether new foreign investment will increase, decrease or continue to flatline in the next 5 years.

Our panel includes:

Paul Lin - Brand Marketing Consultant at Xavor Corporation and Chair of the Marketing Committee at Amcham Shanghai

Nico Bahmanyar, Senior Consultant at LEAF, a French law firm in China

Tommy Greb, Partner at Olivar & Greb Capital Management

We dissect the consumer, tech, and financial services sectors and give feedback based on what we are seeing with our actual clients here in China. We also unpack the latest Amcham Shanghai China Business Report and try to explain the reasons behind the trends in business climate satisfaction and concerns multinational companies are voicing here.