Got an email the other day enclosing a link to a Globe and Mail article, Vancouver miner says China trying to steal Xinjiang gold mine, and stating the following: I literally chuckled when I read this. Only for the reason that it pretty much checked off every point you have warned about. They certainly would
Got an email from an American client this morning asking me whether I was aware of how American companies that do “significant” business with China cannot receive Paycheck Protection Program (PPP2) loans. I replied that I was not, because my focus is not on domestic U.S. law or business. But then I started thinking more
On January 3, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced a ban on cotton products and tomato products produced in Xinjiang, based on information “that reasonably indicates the use of detainee or prison labor and situations of forced labor.” This does not come as a surprise: We warned about such a ban on cotton in
In a recent op-ed, I wrote how the controversy over Disney’s Mulan embodies some of the ethical dilemmas and pitfalls that face companies doing business in China. On one hand, to maintain their presence in China these companies must comply with the demands and expectations of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On the other hand,
U.S. companies’ relationships with their Chinese business partners have been strained in the past year, and that has only accelerated the past few months, as we have noted in prior blog posts (see The US-China Trade War: What’s Next?, When Will the US-China Trade War End? It’s the New Normal, and The US-China Trade War:
On December 23, President Biden signed a new law that bans all imports from Xinjiang. Specifically, the new law establishes a rebuttable presumption that any product from Xinjiang was made using forced labor. Some observations: 1. Not Just a Xinjiang Problem We have repeatedly pointed out in these pages that even a total ban on
My law firm’s international lawyers do a significant amount of transactional work, which we call “happy law.” It’s generally happy because the buyer and seller largely know what they want from the other side and they have already agreed in principle on what the deal will look like. Both sides bring in transactional lawyers like
Night before Christmas so slow day today, so I will use it as an excuse to reminisce a bit. In August, 2019, in what now seems like an eternity ago, in Hong Kong for International Business: Stick a Fork in It, we were — as far as I know — the first to declare the end
A recent Twitter thread from Sari Arho Havrén hit home, as it so perfectly captured my own feelings. She tweeted: Sometimes I miss Hong Kong and Mainland China so much that it physically hurts. 30 years of my life has been tied to China. I have lived in four Chinese cities (incl HK twice). Strings run deep
About a decade ago, I had been working with Damjan DeNoble, who was at that time a health care consultant in China but wanted to go to law school. Towards that end, he asked me to review his “personal statement” for his law school application to the University of Michigan. I reviewed it and liked it
