Yesterday’s post explained why the overseas sales shortcut so often backfires: a company calls someone a contractor, agent, or distributor, but the relationship underneath does not match the label. This FAQ builds... Read more »

Foreign buyers like dealing with Hong Kong intermediaries. The emails are clear, the invoices look familiar, the bank account feels safer, and the person on the other end usually speaks better English... Read more »

Packed into the upstairs theatre of a small performing arts space in east Beijing, more than 100 people, mostly women, are giddy with anticipation. “Who did you come to see?” asks the... Read more »

A U.S. company recently lost more than $860,000 to a foreign client. It had a signed contract, invoices, and legal remedies. That still was not enough. The contract was not the real... Read more »

In a small, crowded room in Taipei, Pan Chien-chin is trying to keep a drone hovering steadily. Imagining himself flying a plane, he gently nudges controller joysticks to guide the insect-like device... Read more »

A surprising number of companies manufacture in China without registering their trademarks there. They assume that because they are not selling into China, they do not need trademark protection there. That is... Read more »

Canada is eliminating a watchdog that investigates alleged human rights violations committed by Canadian companies operating abroad, after Mark Carney said the office hadn’t been “effective” since it was set up in... Read more »

Last summer, Xiaocao, a softly spoken woman in her 40s, received a tip-off that in Lüliang, a small city in China’s Shanxi province, vulnerable women were being forced into marriages. Along with... Read more »

“New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Shanghai doesn’t even sit down.” For the British designer Ian Griffiths, who encountered this line in the New Yorker, it summed up... Read more »