China and Worldwide Social Media Postings: Please Be part of Us!

So much is occurring today in and with China and world wide. Clearly.

A lot of our legislation agency’s authorized work has currently been targeted on serving to shoppers take care of a China that’s internally fracturing and slowly however certainly decoupling from the remainder of the world. At the moment I simply noticed that China’s exports to the United States are down a whopping 24 percent the first five months of 2023. Our worldwide legal professionals have been consumed with serving to corporations (and NGOs and even international locations) work out how finest to take care of a extra political China, with larger China prices, with product shortages, and with factories closing — briefly and completely due to China’s reeling financial system. Our latest commonest name is from shoppers wanting to maneuver their manufacturing to Mexico/Thailand/Vietnam/India “as shortly as doable,” which often is just not shortly in any respect. We’re establishing far more corporations in Mexico today in Mexico than in China. However we’ve got by no means in our historical past had so many initiatives that contain extricating corporations from their China joint ventures or from China solely or contain serving to corporations attempt to get product (or a refund of their fee) from already-paid Chinese language factories that now lack ample funds to make something.

Our social media pages mirror all of this, oftentimes with a stronger and extra innovative perspective than on this weblog, the place we’re at fixed threat of the good firewall and the place our focus is extra on the sensible elements of coping with China than with politics. On our social media,  you will note a extra controversy and extra individualism as between our varied lawyer-writers. There we will let unfastened and totally specific ourselves. And we do.

No doubt, the 2 greatest points most corporations that do enterprise in or with China are dealing with today is whether or not to remain or go and/or whether or not to proceed having their merchandise manufactured in China or to diversify their manufacturing elsewhere. Lots of our shoppers are “splitting the distinction” by establishing and/or rising their companies in China, however doing it greater than ever with trusted locals as a substitute of expats. China to a sure extent has a de facto ban on the doorway of “new” foreigners, so for the quick future, overseas corporations haven’t any alternative on this. Our legislation agency has performed hardly any China firm formations in years, however the variety of offers the place our consumer licenses its know-how or model title to China or contracts to have its services or products offered in China through an in-country Chinese language distributor have greater than doubled, as have the variety of instances we’re referred to as in to assist an American/European firm trying to purchase one other American/European firm with a China subsidiary. Lots of our shoppers are transferring their manufacturing out of China, however most of those self same shoppers have saved at the least a few of their manufacturing there.

The large situation stays diversification. China’s factories going darkish in the course of the peak of the coronavirus satisfied overseas corporations that manufacturing solely in China is just too dangerous. This perception has solely intensified since Russia began its battle towards Ukraine and began growing its aggressiveness towards Taiwan and varied neighboring international locations.

In an effort to stay seen to our many readers in China, we’re cautious about what we write right here on the weblog. There are phrases we keep away from utilizing and matters we keep away from discussing as a result of we wish our attain to incorporate China and if China doesn’t like one thing, its authorities has this “magical” capability to make it go away. And there’s a lot China doesn’t like today. Fb and Linkedin and Twitter give us a higher capability to talk freely. The under is a fast replace and itemizing of what we’re doing today exterior of this weblog.

HB Weblog/Canna Regulation Weblog. Along with this weblog, we’ve got two different blogs that incessantly cowl worldwide legislation points as properly — and typically even China points. These are our HB Weblog, which has turn out to be considerably of a catch-all for worldwide and different weblog posts which can be much less related to our China Regulation Weblog readers, and the Canna Law Blog, which focuses on hashish legislation, hemp legislation, CBD legislation, and extra not too long ago psychedelics legislation. Although the Canna Regulation Weblog for probably the most half focuses on home U.S. legislation points, it incessantly posts on worldwide (hemp, cbd, hashish, and psychedelics) points as properly, and people worldwide posts usually garner probably the most readers. And right here’s a little bit confession: the Canna Regulation Weblog persistently will get extra readers every month than this weblog. Simply to provide you a sign of how essential that weblog is, I attended the main authorized running a blog convention just a few years in the past and two of the audio system highlighted that weblog as THE finest instance of a weblog that has turn out to be extremely well-known along with the legislation agency that writes it. That weblog has gained nearly each prestigious weblog award doable and I might guess its readership surpasses that of nearly each different authorized weblog on the market. I’ve no means of proving it, however till somebody proves me improper I’ll persist in believing that our worldwide hashish legal professionals have been concerned in additional worldwide hashish transactions than some other legislation agency and our worldwide commerce legislation group has dealt with extra worldwide commerce and customs issues involving hashish than some other. Our Canna Law Blog Facebook page has almost 165,000 followers!

Harris Bricken YouTube. Our Harris Bricken YouTube Channel is used principally to supply individuals with free and easy accessibility to our varied webinars. If you wish to watch a tremendous Ted Discuss, go here to hitch the greater than 125,000 who’ve already watched Hilary Bricken (who Chambers describes as being “near a authorized legend on this area as we’ve got. She’s very robust and so sensible, top-of-the-line.”) give a Ted Discuss on “Large Marijuana.” I promise you’ll not be disillusioned. If you wish to be taught extra about coping with your worldwide legislation issues, try our Worldwide Regulation Webinar web page the place we’ve saved most of our webinars to your free viewing.

LinkedIn. We have now a thriving China Law Blog Group on LinkedIn that serves as a spam-free discussion board for China data, networking, and dialogue. This group is at all times rising and totals greater than 13,000 members, and we’re one of many few China teams on Linkedin that’s rising, not shrinking.

The members of our China Regulation Weblog LinkedIn group are pretty evenly cut up between those that stay and work and do enterprise in China and those that do enterprise with China from the US, Australia, Canada, Europe, Africa, the Center East and different international locations in Asia. Some are worldwide legal professionals and a few are China legal professionals, however most are businesspeople and a few are lecturers (college students or professors). We have now senior degree personnel (attorneys and executives) from massive, medium, and small corporations and tons of mid-level and junior personnel as properly.

What actually separates us from most (all?) of the opposite LinkedIn China teams is that we take away something that smacks of spam or is just not related for these doing enterprise with or in China. Our hewing to such a good line on what we allow means we don’t get a big quantity of postings, however this additionally means we don’t waste individuals’s time on drivel or enterprise pitches. If you wish to be taught extra about doing enterprise in China or with China, if you wish to talk about China legislation or enterprise, or if you wish to community with others doing China legislation or enterprise, I urge you to hitch our China Law Blog Group on LinkedIn.

My personal LinkedIn page has almost 13,000 followers and that has led me to submit extra usually there on all issues China. I welcome new followers and new connections, although I warn you that I are usually gradual in responding to connection requests. I promise to not overwhelm you with posts: I submit roughly 1-2 instances per week.

My colleague Jonathan Bench is extremely active on LinkedIn and primarily discusses China enterprise, worldwide enterprise, and blockchain. He has a rising Web3 Law group on LinkedIn.

Ngosong Fonkem, Robert Kossick, and Adams Lee are additionally consultants on worldwide trade-related points. Ngosong focuses on commerce compliance. He usually presents within the U.S. and overseas on trade-related matters, sharing news of his speaking events on LinkedIn. Robert makes use of LinkedIn to discuss compliance and enforcement issues, as well as IPR. Adams primarily discusses China business on LinkedIn.

Shannon Brandao is the founding father of China Boss newsfeed on LinkedIn, with over 20,000 followers. She is internationally thought to be a China knowledgeable, significantly on China commerce and political dangers. She makes use of LinkedIn to debate her analysis on COVID-19 restoration, China-related enterprise and geopolitical tendencies, in addition to new methods of understanding China.

Fred Rocafort is prolific on Linkedin, the place he often posts on worldwide IP and Latin American authorized issues.

Akshat Divatia and Jack Scrantom use LinkedIn to share their perception on immigration insurance policies and practices. I encourage you to comply with Akshat here and Jack here.

Fred Rocafort (who heads up our agency’s worldwide observe group and is fluent in English, Spanish, and Mandarin) is a prolific Linkedin poster, totally on worldwide IP and Latin American authorized and enterprise points.  Go here for that.

Fb. Our China Law Blog Facebook page is prospering as properly, with almost 25,000 followers (that is its variety of “likes”). We use Fb to submit attention-grabbing, essential and entertaining articles about China. Posts there get plenty of feedback and dialogue, usually heated. We are usually very open and opinionated and free-wheeling there. With a lot occurring with China and Hong Kong today, our Fb web page has turn out to be a key supply. I urge you to go there and “like” us so you may profit from what we’re doing there.

Twitter. I’m additionally now posting a good quantity on Twitter at @danharris. I left Twitter for a few years however I’m now completely satisfied to be again as I benefit from the sheer immediacy of it. I most undoubtedly don’t maintain again there however I additionally submit on non-China issues every now and then. I’ve greater than 17,0000 followers there and that quantity retains rising regardless of Twitter’s personal travails. I’m hoping to have 20,000 by the top of this 12 months so please everybody go there and comply with me!

I additionally urge you to take a look at and comply with Fred Rocafort from my agency as properly, (@RocafortFred). Till not too long ago, Fred spent a lot of his life in Hong Kong and in Mainland China and his tweets (oftentimes in each English and Spanish) do an awesome job of bridging the varied gaps between HK, the PRC and the West. Along with posting on China and Hong Kong, Fred additionally usually posts about Latin America. Jonathan Bench (@jonathan_bench), who spent round 5 years residing in China, can also be a frequent poster on Twitter about all issues China, all issues worldwide enterprise, and all issues Web3, and I urge you to comply with him too. We even have a China Regulation Weblog feed, @chinalawblog and it will be nice if you happen to have been to comply with that too.

As a few of you have got observed (and written us about), we’ve got been “streamlining” our weblog. This principally consists of us combining posts into what we’ve got taken to calling “super-posts,” in an effort to make the data we offer much more accessible and useful.

And please be part of us on social media so we will proceed partaking with you on-line in discussions about China and the world.