GanBei干杯-高端商业访谈

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 ShanghaiNico Bahmanyar, Senior Consultant at LEAF, a French law firm in ChinaTommy Greb, Partner at Olivar & Greb Capital ManagementWe 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.

What could possibly stop a seemingly unstoppable Chinese fintech company? Let's get into it here on the upcoming Ant Financial IPO.A roundtable edition of Ganbei with special guests:- James Hull, Founder of Hullx and co-host of the China Tech Investor Podcast- Brian Fleming, Member at Miller & Chevalier, co-host of the podcast EMBARGOED!- Jemma Xu, Co-Founder at RedBlock CapitalJames helps us break down the business units of Ant, their competitive strengths and how the company got as big as it is today. Jemma walks us through China’s new digital currency, DCEP, and does it pose a direct challenge to Ant and its Alipay mobile payment duopoly with Tencent’s Wechat Pay? And what does it say about the intention of the central bank PBOC to potentially box in Alipay’s growth in other verticals?Brian, our previous guest and formerly of the US Justice Department explains some of the past failures of Ant to expand into the US with the blocked acquisition of Moneygram in 2018 and the potential impact if Ant is placed on the US Commerce Department’s “Entity List” akin to Huawei, as has been rumored in the last month.You don’t want to miss this one.

A Deep Dive on the Huawei Restrictions – Part 2 – Effect on Huawei’s Business and Technology·       Potential effect across all business lines – handsets, networks, etc.?·       Can Huawei survive this ban as a business?  Could it be stronger in the end?·       What obstacles stand in the way of China building an independent semiconductor technology ecosystem? ·       How long will it take to build the next generation of these local champions?·       Will it be too late for Huawei and 5G?

A Deep Dive on the Huawei Restrictions – Part 1 – The New Rule Explained·       The most recent restrictions on Huawei explained·       Detailed timeline of restriction escalations and bans by other countries·       Core vs edge computing and why 5G presents so many data security risks·       Data privacy frameworks struggling to cope with the “black box” of a modern 5G telecom network such as Huawei’s

We talk with Cameron Johnson 江凯明, Partner at Tidalwave Solutions and APAC Strategy Head at FAO Global on the changing landscape for China manufacturing. Cameron has been in China for almost 20 years and was the Asia General Manager at a leading carbon fiber company for 7 of those years.-What are the challenges facing foreign manufacturers in China?-Are these companies moving out as much as the pundits says they are? To where?-How is an increasingly digital manufacturing process and supply chain helping give Chinese manufacturers a continued edge?-What points in the value chain are driving this digital process?-How are manufacturers and buyers diversifying their risk of concentrating too much supply coming from one country, especially after COVID-19?

We are joined by Brian Fleming, Member at leading Washington DC law firm, Miller & Chevalier. Before joining the firm, Brian spent several years at the US Department of Justice working on national security issues related to export control, CFIUS investigations, and other compliance and enforcement efforts on international trade.Brian and Art discuss the recent Executive Orders restricting the use of WeChat and TikTok and the ongoing discussions about a potential sale of TikTok and the concurrent CFIUS investigation.-What is the legal basis behind the TikTok and WeChat Executive Orders?-How will the 45 day time frame and process work for the Commerce Department to identify transactions subject to these orders?-Are US companies' China subsidiaries covered by the order on WeChat?-Will US citizens really fall under this rule and be prevented from using WeChat from a practical perspective, even in China? Can they really enforce this rule on a person-by-person basis? Who is really being targeted by this rule?-Will the app stores like Apple and Google be forced to take down the app?-Why was the Executive Order for WeChat limited to transactions with WeChat and not transactions with Tencent, whereas the order on TikTok was much broader to include all transactions with Bytedance?-How hard will big business be lobbying to get this rule narrowly applied?-Is there a license exemption process for companies to use and what can we learn from the Huawei experience with similar licenses?-Can Tencent and Bytedance appeal these Executive Orders?-What is the status of the CFIUS investigation into Bytedance and its 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly and how does that interplay with the discussions now on banning TikTok?-What is coming next with respect to a potential sale to Microsoft or Twitter?-How have CFIUS investigations driven other companies to be sold when held by Chinese buyers?-How is the Administration using the Executive Order and the CFIUS investigation together as a coherent strategy?-Was it obvious back in 2017 that Bytedance should have made a CFIUS filing for its acquisition of Musical.ly?-How does the acquisition of a lip-synching app like Musical.ly trigger national security concerns?-Can any Chinese company that handles a large amount of personal data on US citizens put in place mitigation measures to that will actually satisfy CFIUS in the current political environment?-Is CFIUS really the right tool to be using to screen foreign companies and especially Chinese companies from doing business with large amounts of data or acquiring sensitive technology in the US?

Sino-Indo Tekno - Comparing the Podcast Markets in China and Indonesia The joint Sino Indo Tekno series continues with Tyo Guritno, founder of leading Indonesia podcasting platform Inspigo.  Alan Hellawell of the Indo-Tekno Podcast and Ganbei host Art Dicker dive into a comparison of the two podcast markets. The China podcasting market is much bigger than its relatively nascent Indonesian counterpart.  But the potential for growth in Indonesia is enormous especially as content producers and listeners start to embrace the paid content model so widespread in China.  Tyo discusses how, like China, listeners in Indonesia are turning more and more to podcasts as a self-improvement learning outlet especially during COVID-19 times.  We also compare some of the audience demographics between the two markets.Next we discuss how Indonesian platforms are working proactively with content producers like their Chinese platform cousins.  We finish with some  content moderation measures in China and how platforms in Indonesia deploy resources to moderate content as well.  A podcast episode about podcasting!  You don't want to miss. 

We talk with Momo Estrella, Head of Digital Design at IKEA China. Momo was previously Senior Design Lead at IDEO in Shanghai.

We talk with the often-quoted authority on KOL marketing in China, Elijah Whaley, CMO at Parklu about how brands work with KOLs in China. • How does a brand engage a KOL? • How does a KOL campaign measure cost and impact? • How does the math work for ROI on a KOL campaign? • How do brands enable micro-influencer Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs) to spread their message? • How do brands build authentic communities out of KOL campaigns? • How can brands make their product experience more shareable? • How do users’ intentionality dictate which Chinese social and e-commerce platform brands should use? • Why do Chinese consumers need on average twice as many brand exposures as other consumers before making a purchase decision? And how do brands build campaigns with this in mind?

We talk with Paul Lin, long-time China resident and chair of the Marketing Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce.  On e-commerce trends and how brands reach consumers before and after COVID-19.

We interview X-FLY Drone Racing founder Chen Cheng (in Chinese) about what inspired him to drop his PhD in physics in the US, jump into drone racing, and turn it into a business in China.