China's purchasing criteria different from Japan - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr

Just like Japan in the 1980s China is now going overseas in a major shopping spree to spend a part of its USD two trillion in foreign reserves. But that is where the similarities stop, says Shaun Rein in a commentary on NPR.

While the Japanese were quick to install glass ceilings for foreign managers in their companies and capture assets on the cheap, the Chinese are making acquisitions specifically to get management experience and expertise. They want strategic access to natural resources. And they need to acquire valuable brands and marketing know-how, since China does not yet have truly global brands like Japan's Sony and Toyota.

The US should see China not as a treat, but at least as part of the solution for its current problems, Rein argues:

The U.S. should view China, with its $2 trillion in foreign reserves and appetite for T-bills, more as a lifeline than a potential enemy superpower. As the most influential participants in global institutions like the U.N. and G20, China and America are the lynchpins for worldwide economic recovery. Injecting Chinese capital into American industry is part of the solution, not the problem.

Commercial
Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you need him or any other of our speakers to explain more in detail how the relationship between China and the US could work out, do get in touch.

Mark Schaub by Fantake via Flickr

As a part of a special program on the economic relations between China and the US, the China Speakers Bureau is supporting a trip to New York and San Francisco this autumn by two of our speakers, Xu Ping and Mark Schaub, both senior partners at China's largest law firm King&Wood. If you are interested in their program, do let us know.

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