On 14 March another talk to around 30 delegates from the MBA group of the University of New Hampshire, a regular in Beijing.
As usual in Novotel Peace.

I felt the Professor was a bit surprised or even uneasy with my rather dark view on the situation today in China. They had another presentation earlier by the vice president of a large and very well know foreign company, with extensive operations in China. His views were pretty upbeat, contrary to mine.
Later I got feedback on the comments from Chinese participants who were not offended at all and agreed with my views. Confirms to me that quite a number of people are too worried that certain things are being said: call it being too cautious, without reason. Of course all depends on the audience.
As I mention in the beginning of the presentation, the idea is to give a different view on China. Actually my views are very accurate and are based on solid information, in line with well-know economists. The same day I was reading China Daily: it said much the same: “the situation is grim”. My “Outlook 2016” gives a more complete and balanced view, more on that in another post.
Other speakers often tend to sugarcoat the situation, giving a rosy picture of a bad situation. They do this to please officials. Because they work for a major company (selling to China) they are worried their “frank views” might damage their relation with the government,. They also have bosses and are thus careful. So, I do not really criticize them that much. But some can also completely ignore reality, like wondering if they ever lived and worked in China.
Having speakers from the financial/economics area would result in a different view as they don’t have this limitation. Same like me and on top of that I don’t have a boss to micro-manage me.
Exactly this week the media were full of rather dark announcements on curtailing any “divergent views” – and on the growing amount on cases of social unrest in the country.
As I always explain, the students must be able to listen to different points of view to make up their mind. In this respect I also encourage organizers to let them listen to officials, even if their talks are boring, contain little of relevant information and normally never answer a serious question. It is part of the learning curve!

On 22 July 2015 I was on an environmental panel for the CHANCE program of Penn State University.
The panel was at “Caravan”, said to be the only Moroccan restaurant in Beijing. Afterwards we had dinner in Da Wan Ju (Chongwenmen location), a well-known restaurant specialized in Beijing cuisine. (and than the rain came when I rode back on my bike!)

Members  of the panel were also: Matthew Collins of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE); Andrew Buck, Urban Planner and Designer at Turenscape; (Ms.) Wu Hua, DADA Architecture International Design, Founder and Architecture And Urban Planning Designer.
The group of students was very well aware of environmental issues in China, making the discussion very lively and interesting. Very nice initiative indeed.

We are in between two New Year celebrations: our 1 January and the upcoming Chinese New Year on 8 February 2016.
Time to reflect on where we stand and what we can expect.
Read here our latest newsletter (in PDF) on looking forward to the new 2016 as well as looking back.

Outlook 2016

The full version with more details is available on request.
Feel free to comment here or by getting back to me directly.

The season of seminars to overseas MBA groups is coming to an end, things could pick up again in September.
It was an interesting springtime with pretty different groups to talk to, all of them having their own focus and interests.
I mostly give a very personal introduction on what China is today, unfiltered and direct, also covering the multitude of severe challenges China is facing today. I often have to answer the question: are you optimistic or not? My reply is: I am indeed worried as many others are but overall I am more optimist than pessimist. The proof: I just “repatriated” to Beijing a 40 ft container with personal belongings, so I intend to stay for a while more…

The pics:
– Sunday 17 May 2015: MBA Wagner Group (The Netherlands) – group of 15 including Philip Wagner, in Duge Boutique Hotel. Additional topic was health care in China, for a group of company medical doctors from Holland. Our Rotaractor Sophie kindly joined us to answer some more questions on healthcare.
– Monday 25 May 2015 in Capital Normal University: 14 students of Westfield State University (USA).
– Friday 19 June 2015: CASS Business School of London MBA (35 students), in Hotel New Otani Chang Fu Gong Beijing. Organized as usual by Legacy Ventures (UK).
– Saturday 27 June 2015: Panel with Tony Liu for Saint Mary’s College of California MBA, in ARIVA Beijing West Hotel. Organized by the National School of Development at Peking University, Beijing International MBA at Peking University (BiMBA)