Been a bit consumed preparing for a China seminar I am co-hosting. Today I spoke with Sage Brennan, one of the consumer products panelists and we ran through some possible questions. I threw out the following question as a possibility: ”What are some of the most pervasive myths you see about the Chinese consumer.” Sage’s response was that would take him at least an hour to answer. I then said in mock surprise: so you mean all the headlines about China’s consumers are not accurate. We laughed. I told him it was the same way in law and that there are certain things that are viewed almost as gospel and they are just flat out wrong.
My favorites follow:
1. There is no point in having a contract with a Chinese company because they will just violate it anyway. For a rebuttal of this, check out China Contracts Make Sense.
2. There is no point in registering your intellectual property in China because it will get stolen anyway. For a rebuttal of this, check out China: Do Just One Thing. Trademarks.
3. Corruption makes China impossible. For why this is not exactly true, check out China Corruption By The Numbers.
4. For some of the reasons set forth above, there is just no point in suing a Chinese company in China. For a rebuttal of this, check out Litigating in China.
What myths about China are there in your industry?
