Well how about that?! Vitamin C: Your Daily Dose On China has just turned 50 years old! Half a century of existence, eh? And who would have thought we’d have made it this far? Well thankfully the more important story is China, and, moreover, where it finds itself exactly after 60 years of independent statehood. As today’s “People’s Republic” grows with characteristic blistering abandon, is that same PRC starting to fray apart at the seams, ethically and morally? In Episode 50, ADM recounts a common urban Chinese horror story and let me tell you, friends, it ain’t pretty. As China surges ahead towards apparent superpower-dom, is the nation somehow checking and balancing itself? Are its citizens safe in their own cities? Is the country going to hell in a handcart, as people disregard their fellows’ well-being with their only concerns revolving around the almighty yuan? And as cloying as it sounds: are Chinese citizens still nice to each other? You can decide for yourself at the end of this episode, and thanks again for watching. Looking foward to seeing you at 100!

There is “good” Mao and “bad” Mao. There is the Mao of the Chinese Civil War, and then there’s the Mao of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. So which Mao Zedong is the “real” Mao Zedong? Peter Levenda gets into all of this in his latest book, “The Mao of Business: Guerrilla Techniques for the New China,” where he describes how the majority of Chinese you’ll be dealing with as part of your China business will have come of age during the worst years of Mao’s sordid reign and why you should be reading Mao’s “Little Red Book” instead of more traditional Chinese strategy tomes like The Art of War. It was a compelling read, and that’s what we talk about in today’s pod. Thanks again for watching!

So you think you’re just going to come into China and fling product to 1.3 billion starving customers? ::: buzzer sound! ::: Not going to happen! It’s not nearly that easy. Bigger names with even deeper pockets have managed to crap out and fail (Rupert Murdoch anyone?). So if you’re not prepared for a deeper commitment to the PRC, don’t invest. Just go and enjoy your holiday. Oh…um, and thanks again for watching!

DISCLAIMER | Trying something slightly different today. Hope you don’t mind. Please let us know what you think, by the way…

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So have you ever wondered what’s the big hullabaloo about the Chinese — in one fell swoop — having the power to undermine America’s national economy if they one day up and decide to cash in their US foreign debt? We’re talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion US. Well, it’s more of a media-spun thing than anything, and I explain why in this episode. Thanks again for watching!

Welcome back, it’s been quite some time since our last episode, hasn’t it? Anyways I’ve been on a reading tear of late and just ploughed through Robyn Meredith’s bestselling THE ELEPHANT AND THE DRAGON: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us, a thin comparative study between the two juggernauts and how this affects the US’ future prospects. I was so inspired by the content that I made a short list of the main themes, comparing and contrasting as I have a tendency to do. Man it’s cold out there…thanks again for watching!

Welcome to Copşa Mică, Romania, the most polluted city in all of Europe before Wall Fall (google it if you don’t believe us!). Apologizes in advance: we didn’t intend to be so “Speedy Gonzalez” on this ep, but some barrel-chested former miners — the same irate cats who were summoned by the reconstituted post-Ceauşescu regime to clobber down on major Romanian student head during the dying days of the Romanian dictatorship in June 1990 — and the station master were after us to get this one wrapped up STAT. But we think you get the picture though…we hope to see more of these former sooty belch towns closed down in China over the coming years.

China has already constructed several model futuristic cities — green spaces of calm that offer an ecological residential experience which is popular amongst China’s growing middle class. Yet none of these efforts have been entirely successful for a number of reasons. While we were walking through Bucharest, Romania’s “Circus Park” the other day, we were pleasantly reminded of these ideal burgs as we breathed in the park’s layout and unique looking structures. Thanks again for watching!

Today we weigh in on the roiling debate about whether one should know how to speak Mandarin Chinese in order to succeed in China business. The thought did indeed come to mind today as I caught a FOX Business interview with Jack Perkowski, author of Managing the Dragon (www.managingthedragon.com), who was being grilled on this exact issue by show host David Asman. Poor Jack! (My man held up, though). Thanks again for watching!

If you’re looking to do big business in China, one thing you’ve got to keep in mind is that China is a loose collective of regions, rather than a cohesive national unit. Twenty-two of them — to be exact — at least according to McKinsey’s 2009 Annual Chinese Consumer Survey, an annual dispatch which takes into account the opinions of 15,000 people across 815 Chinese cities. Guangdong is as different from Xinjiang as the both of them are from Beijing’s Capital Region. Oh, so you didn’t know this? Well then, you’ll be doing business in the Middle Kingdom at your peril. That’s the subject of today’s episode, and thanks again for watching!

As China’s economy sizzles, neighboring Japan can feel the heat. Sure, Japan’s the world’s second largest economy behind the US, but can it hold onto the slot for much longer? Mix together China’s eight percent annual growth, a trade relationship with Japan decidedly in its favor, some very angry Chinese youth slap-dashed with some rather clueless Japanese millennials and a new government in power in Tokyo…the next few months promise to be anything but navel-gazing boring. So are you ready for your medicine? Thanks again for watching…