It is fascinating to see at the moment how much China is flexing its power. And maybe as importantly how little the world is pushing back. Certainly on the commercial side we are finding that companies such as Apple which are beholden to China for their supply chain and others, such as the NBA, which see China as a big market have rolled over. Now the House has passed a bill supporting the Hong Kong protestors and China has threatened retaliation should the bill make it into law via the Senat...

Wishing everyone a belated Thanksgiving. If you have some time today or over the weekend, I recommend watching this video of VP Mike Pence talking about the administration’s approach to China Then follow it by watching this video by Hank Paulson who proposes a different approach but seem clearly pessimistic about where this is headed. The deterioration of US-China relations is a massive tail risk. The recent sell-off in the stock market may be a partial reflection of that but doesn’t even beg...

As has been widely reported, China has banned all ICOs. Given the torrid pace of ICOs in China, many of which appear to be downright scams, this should not come as a surprise. What will be interesting to see though is what comes next. Here are some key questions. First, is this a temporary ban only? Will China come out with a set of regulations that allow some ICOs to go forward? Given that China has allowed crypto currencies per se, I expect that they will come up with regulation and that th...

All of my China impressions are to be taken with a fairly big grain of salt as I only spent 12 days there and was mostly a tourist. I am sure people who have been living there for years and/or have started businesses will be more reliable sources of information. With that caveat out of the way here is one of my most important impressions. China has the opportunity to grow its Internet sector by leapfrogging development stages common in the US and other Western economies. This is particularly ...

We just got back from spending 12 amazing days in China. Given the 12 hour time difference, I feel a bit like the Panda in the picture below and a more detailed set of impressions will have to wait. But one thing is for sure - it’s hard to look at the world in quite the same way once have seen China first hand. Just one example: we had flawless mobile phone coverage including data everywhere we went including a boat trip down the Li River and a visit to the rice terraces of Longsheng. Hence m...

We are about to go on a trip to China and I couldn’t be more excited. I have never been to Asia before and am looking forward to the experience. China in particular has held my fascination since taking Roderick MacFarquhar’s amazing course on the Cultural Revolution in college. And now of course China has been seeing dramatic economic growth with a domestic Internet population that is approaching 500 million users. For a variety of reasons that include language and culture but of course also ...

The proposed PROTECT IP act is an improvement on COICA, but still makes the wrong trade-offs between protecting copyright holders and defending the integrity of the Internet. There are several major modifications from the COICA draft. The key ones are first that only the DOJ can initiate procedures against foreign web sites that would result in exclusion of these sites from DNS and second that for domestic websites the only type of injunctive relief available is financial (no advertising supp...

I have worried on and off on this blog about the growing reach of Google. But yesterday I was thrilled to see Google take a determined stance on the issue of censorship and – by implication human rights – in China. I very much hope that the team there has the fortitude to stick to its plan, even if that means a rough road ahead for one of the world’s largest markets. Now lets see if any other Internet and IT companies will follow suit. Many of them have lower margins and more competition in t...

I just ran across an article titled “Skilled Immigrants on Why They are Leaving the U.S.” in BusinessWeek (via Techmeme). It is not surprising to find diminished job prospects in the U.S. as a key reason, but I was shocked to read that the wait time for a Green Card for Indian and Chinese citizens is now 10 years (that’s a decade!). That is a very long time for anybody to wait and live with the uncertainties faced by visa holders. Just entering the country when you are here on a visa can be a...