A quick comment from yesterday's lecture on taxation. I must have had a hundred conversations with clients over the years about Representative Offices and taxation, and I always realized that the law as written and reality were not exactly in agreement.
I was reminded of this rather forcefully when I lectured on the topic. When teaching [...]

China has resumed approvals for institutions to buy overseas securities under its tightly managed offshore investment regime after a 17-month hiatus, suggesting Beijing believes the worst of the financial crisis is over.
The resumption in approvals for outward investment also signals a return to Beijing’s earlier strategy of encouraging outflows to relieve pressure [...]

Lots o' press in the past week on the revived idea of an expanded Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), traditionally discussed in terms of Korea, China and Japan (a.k.a. ASEAN+3).
Forbes has a very nice, simple editorial by Paul Maidment on the subject, and if you need an entry-level piece, this is it. Particularly good [...]

Google has really been getting horrific press here recently. Reminds me of Microsoft earlier in the decade. After the Google Books settlement issue and the complaints from Chinese authors, now People's Daily seems to be getting in the act with the following accusation:
[T]he Web site of the People’s Daily is accusing Google of “malicious [...]

Police officers issued a total of 168 fixed-penalty tickets and 144 summonses to motorists and pedestrians for violating traffic regulations during a crackdown in Kowloon East yesterday.

Simon Carless of Gamasutra wrote that Vice-President Alan Yu of game developer ngmoco:) said at the GDC in Shanghai that "iPhone game piracy is a big issue, with 50%-90% piracy estimated in the first week of release on Ngmoco games." 50 to 90 percent o…

Tonight, IP Dragon is looking forward to attend the lecture of Professor David Llewelyn about the relevancy of Intellectual Property Rights for everybody."As Premier Wen Jiabao has been saying since 2004, world competition in the 21st century will rev…