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In April 2016, though Chamber International, the The Law Society of England and Wales commissioned me to write a feature explaining why it's important for UK firms to take regional variations in China's society seriously . The original article can be found on The Law Society website here, and also on Chamber International's here. The full article is reproduced below: China's Regional Variations – Challenge and Opportunity Why is it important for UK firms to understand China

If you’ve travelled or lived there then you'll know what I mean. Yesterday afternoon I was eating in a top-class Taiwanese restaurant near Shanghai's financial district. As a guest, that is! Everything (and everyone) around me seemed international, connected, mobile – a bit like being in brand new international airport, but with much better food and seating. For this whole trip I'd been feeling less savvy, less modern than my hosts. In each city they had managed transport,

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My recent interview with Nottingham's Rob Avery-Phipps ("We want to be the most China-friendly city in Britain") generated quite a bit of interest on LinkedIn, so, at the risk of this turning into a bit of an East Midlands face-off, I'm following it up with another – this time with Wang Chao, the brains behind Derby's Chinese-language tourism website. I begin by asking - how did she go about advertising Derby's delights to potential visitors from China? Who were her targets

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'Intellectual property' is one of those subjects on which everyone has opinions, and it's very hard to find a real expert. But James Love is a real expert. James' legal practice specialises in sorting out international IP issues – China has been an important focus for him for many years, and he visits there regularly. His senior colleague at James Love Legal in Harrogate is Lindsey Wrenn, a Registered Trade Mark Attorney; together they help British companies protect their I

Building bridges to China through scientific research A few weeks ago I stumbled across the story of a small Hampshire-based high-tech materials company who won a £400k order from Zhengzhou University (where my wife and I were students back in 1999-2000). This deal got them quite a bit of attention; last year they were even "favourited" by Prime Minister David Cameron on Twitter! This was all too good to resist, so I phoned them up and asked if I could pay a visit. Plasma Q

Driving their suppliers to guarantee new levels of service quality in west Sichuan Our second SME Spotlight features a very different kind of business from the first. Extravagant Yak Travel Company (EY) are Tibet travel specialists offering “personalised tours on The Roof of the World”. They are a wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE) in Chengdu, Sichuan, whose holding company is in Hong Kong and whose founders come from Canada and the USA. Earlier in April I had pleasure

China-based consultants Maxelli produced a report recently asking which of China's 2nd tier cities is "the most international". Now that is an interesting question, especially if you're planning to open a rep office! Most British SMEs already realise that China must be understood regionally, and that regional variations can be a great as the differences between some European countries (e.g. in terms of industry, language, application of law, culture, development)[1]. Furthe