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In the last week, from most recent to oldest, we wrote about the following:
1. How Chinese companies steal your intellectual property.
2. How terminating your employees in China can come back and bite you.
3. How difficult it can be to figure out the capital requirements for your WFOE.
4. How complicated it can be drafting a China sales agency contract. This post not only started out with the following preamble: “With China getting more expensive and more difficult for foreign companies, and with many foreign companies choosing to leave China rather than risk getting caught for operating there illegally.”
5. How China companies will counterfeit your products.
6. How China is cracking down like never before on companies with “independent contractors” in China. This was I think our third or fourth post on this just this month as we just keep seeing the number of American companies getting caught for this increasing and the penalties become more onerous. We titled this article Doing Business in China with Deportation or Worse Hanging Over Your Head and we used the following picture with that post:
7. A Chinese Law Bibliography.
A psychologist would look at the above seven and quickly find that they all have one theme in common. China is a difficult, even dangerous place for foreign companies doing business there, seeking to do business there, or even doing business with Chinese companies. And your salvation comes from knowing and obeying the law and being able to use the law to your advantage. Hey, that’s what we do for a living: we are China attorneys and we help foreign companies gain an advantage over Chinese companies by using the law.
But I have to admit that this all can get a bit unrelenting and that there is more to life than gloom and doom. And hey, if you knew us, you would quickly learn that in real life we are some of the nicest most optimistic upbeat people you could ever hope to meet. Truly.
And today I aim to show that with the following link to an amazing video on North Korea/South Korea relations by a true expert in the field. Now I could tell you that I am posting this video because the relations between North Korea and South Korea are in many ways a proxy for the relations between China and the United States, and then I could go on to discuss how the relations between these four countries might impact your business with China. But I won’t even try that. Instead, I will admit that I am posting this for one reason and one reason only. Because I found this to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Maybe it is because I have done many a TV (and radio) interview myself (too early in the morning or too late at night) in a room with the door closed and sometimes with one or both of my daughters making noise in the background, and always living in fear that one just might burst in while I am talking, as they so often used to do when I was on my cell phone talking to a client. Heck, at a certain age, they used to mimic me or try to get me to laugh while on those calls. So maybe I find the following video and article so incredibly funny simply because I can so relate to it. Be that as it may. No ulterior motives here. No China business scare tactics here. Just an attempt to get you to laugh and enjoy.
Watch the video first then read this article (please, please, please read the article, which analysis heightens the video and is almost as funny as the video itself) and then watch the video again. Then let us know what you think. I’m guessing many of you have already seen it, but enjoy it again; it does not get old.
Nobody panic, we will eventually return to our regularly scheduled programming. In the meantime though, have a great day.
We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.