New Challenges for North American Business

For the last few centuries, trade with Asia has been emerging from controlled access to isolated economies, often based in limited geographical locations such as gateway cities, to businesses integrated with country economies, even when the economic system is different from the home country. In the technology sector, Asian countries such as Japan and now China have grown from a source of "bargain" products for North America, to top-notch manufacturing and design of desirable products, often with a cachet, such as Sony.

North American businesses cannot rely on Asian countries being simply offshore manufacturing locations with reduced costs. As the balance of business changes, opportunities to sell into the developing Asian economies are also arising, and a variety of models for establishing a corporate presence are appearing. Companies like Wal-Mart are making unexpected changes such as welcoming unionization in China, and Western brands such as European grocer Carrefour are becoming well known in China as well.

Chinese is becoming a popular language for United States students to learn as students realize that it will probably be an asset in their careers in the coming decades. Chinese students learn English as part of their standard education and are eager to learn more of Western culture.

Since the recent opening of China's cultural borders to Western influence, a change unexpected by some has occurred - the combination of Western and Chinese culture exemplified by Hong Kong has become increasingly the norm on the mainland, especially in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where large numbers of Westerners are living now.

As Western culture permeates Asia to increasing degrees, one popular American pastime has arrived in China in a big way - basketball! Since Yao Ming joined the Houston Rockets, a second Chinese player is now playing in America, and when his team played Yi Jianlian's Bucks in a regular NBA game, an estimated 200 million Chinese watched, according to China Daily. NBA basketball, my Chinese friends tell me, is regularly broadcast on Chinese TV.

Keep posted for broad and deep insights into the East-West interface in the world of business!