Series to highlight
tips to China business

Seminars will cover topics for
businesses entering China market

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Island business operators who are keen to do business in China will be able to get up-to-date information on that country's laws, business climate, politics and culture in a series of seminars to begin April 12 at the Japanese Cultural Center on Beretania Street.

Organized by the Japan America Institute of Management Science, the sessions will feature Hawaii experts covering a wide range of subjects. The sessions take all afternoon on successive Thursdays, April 12, 19 and 26 and a Friday, May 4.

Glenn Miyataki, the institute's president, called the series an essential resource for anyone wishing to enter the China market, either doing business with Chinese companies or selling products or services to Chinese consumers.

China's forthcoming entry into the World Trade Organization has led the World Bank to predict that China will have the largest economy in the world by 2010.

The first session features Kate Xiao Zhou, an associate professor of comparative politics and the political economy of East Asia at the University of Hawaii, who will talk on the Chinese political system.

Former state Attorney General Margery Bronster, who earlier worked with a New York law firm representing the China National Offshore Oil Corp., China National Coal Development Corp. and the Bank of China, will give her observations on China "then and now."

The second session, April 19, will feature Blue Hawaii Surf LLC President and CEO Michael Zhang, who is from Shanghai. Zhang, who is also president of silk screen and manufacturing business Sea Sky USA Inc., will talk about his experience as an entrepreneur doing business in China.

Victor Hao Li, former president of the East-West Center and now co-chairman of Asia Pacific Consulting Group, will talk to the second session on negotiating in China.

Subsequent sessions will cover the rule of law in China, marketing to China in the information age, Chinese culture and etiquette and an architect's experience in China.

Japan America Institute of Management Science, the non-profit business education institution established in Hawaii Kai in 1972 by Fujitsu Ltd., of Japan, is joined by co-sponsors the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii; the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism; the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii; the US-China People's Association; and the Center of Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.

The cost is $65 per person per seminar, or $60 a session for those attending more than one, as well as for members of the sponsoring organizations. More information and a reservations blank can be found on the institute's Web site at www.jaims.org/china.