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While this analysis could be potentially correct, I'd be a bit careful in taking anything Chris Devonshire-Ellis states too seriously. The man has a long, sorid history nehind him which involves recently getting booted out of China for fabricating interviews with Chinese government officials. Yes I was aware of this even when I posted this article. I was not aware he had gotten kicked out of China (maybe I missed this in the links/info I looked at). Here is a link with a nice summary of the incident you cite (there are many others also): http://www.chinalawblog.com/2009/02/breaki...re_fabrica.html I posted this link because it fit with most other explianations I had seen while being the best overall summary. I think the biggest learning from this event was get government approval FIRST before you let any word about the deal leak out. Our company lost a potential merger over this issue. However thinks for pointing this out to the others about China Briefing. I should have put this disclaimer in before I posted the original link.

Here is an article with 3 reasons on why the deal failed. Good insight into doing business in China. http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2010/02...B_news_holdings

got notice for p2 on 2/19 and awaiting for the package!!!!!! So fast .. nice!!!

I am surprised it took them this long to decide that building and selling a fuel monster such as a Hummer was a losing proposition. I was starting to wonder if they had a future as a US Automobile company executive. I don't saving 3,000 American jobs was ever part of the reason for the initial interest.

It can be real comedy here sometimes as to where people are getting their figures when they make statements. I would consider it very likely that many Chinese young, and real estate investors are opting to go the mortgage route, in lieu of years past where predominately cash was paid in full. It would be very difficult to validate any figures, as I don't know that they are published in China. That culture of remaining debt free is alive and well. There are dangers in financing a home in China. Many of my co-workers have opted to get a loan, and had to come up with the standard 50% of the total value when submitting the application to the bank. The danger here is, that if you don't get approved, and it does happen, that you lose that 50% down fee. Therefore, unless you have a very stable income and history, it is still safer to pay the total in cash. Also, don't forget that most Chinese live in rural areas where everything is different. well, I have to admit that I did not look at the overall figures published by any research group. I base the 80% mortgage number on our own experience. We have 2 residential developments in Guangzhou that are selling, one development in Chengdu that is selling, two huge develoment projects in 2nd and third tier cities in Jiangsu selling and one not yet reached pre-sale stage. If you add the total it is over 4 million sq. meters of development and actually have sold over thousands of apartments. We watch the cash flow daily. In our projects, about 80% get mortgages on average. We get a weekly report of how many units sold and how much cash came back, including a break down of cash purchase and bank loan draw down. In your company's experience what is the average percentage of the down payment when one gets a bank loan?

I did not even know they existed -- I have never had any problems using ATMs in China. My bank is Wachovia. The only problem is the daily withdrawal limit. Wachovia has a $500 USD/day limit (for my own safety they told me when I tried to increase it and bitched that it was my money that I wanted to get access to). One option is to transfer the money beforehand to your girl's chinese bank account. Second option is you can use your ATM/debit card (if it is also a Visa/MC) to get a cash advance from a bank in China. I did this with Bank of China and China Merchants Bank. The limit for that was $10,000/day. The drawback was the chinese bank chanrged 3% transaction fee (took it off the top so you got 3% less RMB than you paid for) and the Wachovia took the 2% international transfer fee (which that charge anyway for using the card in an ATM). So basically for 3% fee I could get a bank transfer via my ATM/debit card. I just made my compnay pay for the 5% fee ... Perhaps you will find this link about US currency interesting then. http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq/curre...minations.shtml Larry Thanks...nice link. Now I know why I did not know they were in existance. I am too young to have ever seen them ...

The path of least resistance is for her to adopt a westernized signature. Otherwise, you could end up spending a lot of time explaining the funny little characters she uses. I ALWAYS sign my own name using my nick-name (RandyW). There have been a handful of places (especially here in China) where someone would require my full legal name for a signature (pisses me off when they do). In fact, at the bank, they insisted that I spell my full name out in block letters so they could read it! That reminds me about the first time I sent money from my USA bank account to my China bank account. I sent the money to myself using my first name, middle initial, last name. This is my standard signature and how all my accounts in the USA are set-up. When I went to see if the money had arrived in my Chinese bank account and convert the dollars to RMB they told me the money was in my account but they could not give it to me because my Chinese account is listed under my first name, middle name, last name (it was setup using my passport). I pulled out my Alabama DL and showed them it was the same name format and same address as on the bank transfer from my USA bank so I am that person. Needless to say, after 1 hour of fruitless discussion and another 30 minutes of telling them to go F&*K themselves I went home and called my bank to cancel my account transfer and re-done it with my full name. Okay two points: 1. There's an Alabama driver's license? Who knew? 2. I see from the final paragraph that you've finally found the best way to work with the Chinese bureaucracy... Yes there is an Alabama driver's license. The greatest part about it is that one can get said license even if they use words like "re-done". Where did that come from ...

Yeah, par for the course. Every year they launch a new campaign to eliminate corruption. They make examples out of one or two people and then it's back to business as usual. They'll eliminate corruption when Hell freezes over. ... or if they had another leader like Mao Zedong. Corruption didn't exist under Chairman Mao. You think the Chinese govt. under Mao was better than the current govt.?

For lines 12/13 I used my US address because even though I was in China for the last 3 years I maintained my US residence. For line 15 I put USA because I could prove I maintained a household in the USA while I was out of the country.

Your observation is correct. A lot of it is due to low occupancy rates that many Chinese people say hovers around 60% to 70%. It's also due to the fact that people simply cannot afford or do not want to pay what you'd expect rent would be. They'd rather buy the place. Two current examples: One of the most popular residential areas in Guangzhou where you can buy a new house for about 13k RMB per square meter -- 130 square meter flats rent on average for 3,500 RMB. In Beijing, on the 2nd Ring Road, one of the most desireable residential areas has homes for sale at about 25k RMB per square meter. Last year, when property prices were strong, a 200 m2 flat was renting for about 10k. From about the last 4 months until even now 7,500 RMB per month is fine. 130 m2 flats are renting at about about 5k. Would you buy a 4 - 5 million RMB flat to rent out at 7,500 RMB per month? 15% or more of that 7,500 RMB is automatically eaten up in taxes when you provide a rental receipt (fa piao) to the tenant. My experience in Shenzhen is also the same regarding low rent prices compared to apartment purchase price. However in Qingdao in the CBD area is is difference. The rental prices are the same as Futian area in Shenzhen. Also they appear to be even more than in Beijing. For instance a 75 m2 apartment is ~5000 RMB/month in the CBD area close to Hong Kong Road. In addition it is common here for the renter to have to pay the rental receipt if they require. The renter also has to pay all the real estate agents fees and the rent is due in one upfront payment. I thought this was common to all of northern China but maybe it is only in Shandong.

It can be real comedy here sometimes as to where people are getting their figures when they make statements. I would consider it very likely that many Chinese young, and real estate investors are opting to go the mortgage route, in lieu of years past where predominately cash was paid in full. It would be very difficult to validate any figures, as I don't know that they are published in China. That culture of remaining debt free is alive and well. There are dangers in financing a home in China. Many of my co-workers have opted to get a loan, and had to come up with the standard 50% of the total value when submitting the application to the bank. The danger here is, that if you don't get approved, and it does happen, that you lose that 50% down fee. Therefore, unless you have a very stable income and history, it is still safer to pay the total in cash. Also, don't forget that most Chinese live in rural areas where everything is different. Simply false. For first time home buyers 30% is the most you need to put down on a new home. For used homes it can be as low as 40% depending on the appraisal value and age of the property. Tops -- absolute tops -- is 50%. When purchasing a home from a developer, the standard down payment is 20% and there is a standard clause that the purchase agreement is contingent on bank approval. If the bank does not approve the mortgage, you get your money back, period. Once the mortgage is approved, you come up with the other 10% remaining. Many times you can even do it 10 + 20. When purchasing a used home, you'd be really stupid to give the current owner anything other than a minimal deposit while going through the mortgage formalities. You could use an escrow service provided by real estate agents, but that is probably even riskier. Even for expats, getting a mortgage in China is one of the least stressful banking experiences you'll have. It is nothing at all like the mortgage circus you go through when buying a home in the States. If you have an income sufficient -- according to bank calculations -- to safely pay the mortgage and you have no adverse credit history, your mortgage is approved. Generally the bank wants verification that you earn approximately double your mortgage payment. It really is that easy. That your friends have had problems says more about the quality of your friends than how the mortgage process works. I seem to recall that before the housing bubble and crisis getting a mortgage was quite a breeze for people in the US even if they did not have sufficient income and bad credit. It will probaby be tougher to get a China property mortgage in future if (when) the bubble bursts.

Just to give an update. I ordered the book. I'll wait to hear if others are as willing to read what they want to post about. I was not willing to comment but am willing to read it first. I found it for 20 USD online. Where did you find it for 2 USD? Have you hard of Amazon.com ? I only search for information on the author, the book, and the source of his information. During that search I ran across sites selling the book for 20-32 USD. I was just curious where you found the book for 2 USD. Nothing was meant to be implied by my question other than this. The book you found has no author listed. The actual book by Jin Quan is "China in Diagrams 1978-2008". This book is different from the $2 used one on Amazon.com. As I said, if you are really interested in a good economic overview of China's development look at the other book I referenced earlier.

I did not even know they existed -- I have never had any problems using ATMs in China. My bank is Wachovia. The only problem is the daily withdrawal limit. Wachovia has a $500 USD/day limit (for my own safety they told me when I tried to increase it and bitched that it was my money that I wanted to get access to). One option is to transfer the money beforehand to your girl's chinese bank account. Second option is you can use your ATM/debit card (if it is also a Visa/MC) to get a cash advance from a bank in China. I did this with Bank of China and China Merchants Bank. The limit for that was $10,000/day. The drawback was the chinese bank chanrged 3% transaction fee (took it off the top so you got 3% less RMB than you paid for) and the Wachovia took the 2% international transfer fee (which that charge anyway for using the card in an ATM). So basically for 3% fee I could get a bank transfer via my ATM/debit card. I just made my compnay pay for the 5% fee ...

The path of least resistance is for her to adopt a westernized signature. Otherwise, you could end up spending a lot of time explaining the funny little characters she uses. I ALWAYS sign my own name using my nick-name (RandyW). There have been a handful of places (especially here in China) where someone would require my full legal name for a signature (pisses me off when they do). In fact, at the bank, they insisted that I spell my full name out in block letters so they could read it! That reminds me about the first time I sent money from my USA bank account to my China bank account. I sent the money to myself using my first name, middle initial, last name. This is my standard signature and how all my accounts in the USA are set-up. When I went to see if the money had arrived in my Chinese bank account and convert the dollars to RMB they told me the money was in my account but they could not give it to me because my Chinese account is listed under my first name, middle name, last name (it was setup using my passport). I pulled out my Alabama DL and showed them it was the same name format and same address as on the bank transfer from my USA bank so I am that person. Needless to say, after 1 hour of fruitless discussion and another 30 minutes of telling them to go F&*K themselves I went home and called my bank to cancel my account transfer and re-done it with my full name.

The next time you get a prescription from your doctor, see if you can read their signature. Again a signature is a person's mark, it does not need to be readable, just consistent. I figure a signature using Chinese Characters is a unique mark. Of course doctors are known for this (though I dont understand why). What does that have to do with this discussion. I never thought of using the chinese characters for the signature because I am quite certain what a native born Alabama government offical will think and say after he sees my wife sign a document in chinese characters. Also since the G-325 form says "If your native alphabet is in other than Roman letters, write your name in your native alphabet below". I figure from this that they wanted to signature above to be in Roman letters. Not that any of this matters. As long as they accept the signature mark you could just put an X in the box.

Get the SSN and then file.

Without doing any of the arithmetic myself, I would guess that China's low number is due more to the vast numbers of people living somewhat equivalently at poverty levels, rather than any kind of a universal upsurgence of wealth. Not sure but you may be correct. This does not take away from the trend in the USA of GDP and the index rising: Gini indices for the United States at various times, according to the US Census Bureau:[6][7] 1929: 45.0 (estimated) 1947: 37.6 (estimated) 1967: 39.7 (first year reported) 1968: 38.6 (lowest index reported) 1970: 39.4 1980: 40.3 1990: 42.8 2000: 46.2 [8] 2005: 46.9 2006: 47.0 (highest index reported) 2007: 46.3 2008: 46.6 A comparision of CEO salary to avg. worker's salary from 1970 to 2008 will tell you the same thing.

Thanks for the good insight into 1978 China. Would love to hear more sometime.

I never called you a liar. For example, I don't doubt that you believed everything you wrote about the sex scandal when you wrote it. But when it was pushed we found out that the confidence with which you made statements was out of line with the accuracy of what you remembered and wrote. The story about a 2-week passport and visa issuance, to me, has the same ring of something that sounds inaccurate, misremembered, or exaggerated (I never said this was intentional). I don't feel I'm in a corner and I haven't attacked anything about you. I've only questioned some of your claims and pointed out some of the times you've made broad negative insinuations about me (e.g., I don't understand how anything works, "even I" should understand something, etc.). Instead of arguing, I don't know why you haven't just gone, found the passport, and looked at the passport issue date and visa issue date. If even those two dates are less than two weeks apart (i.e., not even considering the time it took to print and issue the passport), then I'll concede the point and say you were right in your confidence about her case. OK now that you are a little more civil I will explain in my wife's case in more detail. I don't know why but I will. 1. On 27 November 2000 I went for a visit to China. 2. National day was on 1 October. I don't know what day of the week that was on. 3. when National day was over she told me that she might have a surprise to tell me but later. 4. On "about" the 15 she told me that she had applied for a visa to come for a visit to America and that she had not wanted to tell me about it in case it was disapproved. 5. About one or two days later she came in with the new passport and the visa in it. I was kind of suspicious of how she got this all done so quickly and ask to see the passport and sure enough there it was the passport was issued after my arrival date of 27 November 2000. In all honesty I do not know when she applied for the passport but the issue date was after 27 November 2000. She told me that she applied for it and the visa after I had arrived and decided that she wanted to come to my home in America for a visit. I did not look at the visa issue date. In all honesty she could have applied for the passport before I arrived but I believed her I had no reason to not believe her. 6 That afternoon I went to a local travel agency to buy her a ticket to go back with me and was told that it would be absolutely impossible that every seat was full on ever United flight for the next two weeks. When I told her that the next day she said to let her take care of it and in less than one hour she had a ticket on not just a ticket but a ticket for the seat next to my seat and had them delivered to the hotel. 7. On the 19 of October 2000 we were set to leave Beijing for the US. Her boss insisted that he take us to the airport in their company¡¯s stretch lemo. He came by the hotel on the morning of 19 October 2000 took us to the airport and on the way I ask him in a nice way how he was able to get her passport and visa issued so quickly and his answer was this is China if you know the right people everything is possible. I left it at that as I was just thankful for what he had done for us and I do believe in my heart that he was responsible for getting the passport and visa issued so quickly although I did not hold his feet to the fire to find out how and I was not with him every step of the way only the end product. So now you can tear this story into shreds if you like but this will be my final post on it good, bad or indifferent whether you think that I am telling the truth or not that is up to you. Larry PS It was a multiple entry visa too. She could have stayed for 12 months but went back in about 4 months to help her boss find a replacement for herself and get some of her personal affairs in order. I went back to China 3 more times to see her and she came back to America two of those times so we could stay with each other longer that way. I dont know why but the 27 November 2000 date confuses me in this story. Anyway I am still interested to find out about the VO who issued visas for sex with 100's of chinese girls ... my current job contract ends soon ...

Be careful - Xoom charges 1% on the currency conversion (6.75 conversion rate) and has a fairly small limit. Last week they did not. The $1500 was converted to a little over 102300 RMB. My limit is $6000 per month. Probably because I have been using them for quite a while. The $4.99 is a recent rate reduction. Not sure if it is for long time members or not. Wow, wish I could get 102300rmb for $1,500. My wife uses xoom to send money to parents. Always works fine but one time it did take a few days longer than normal. But what conversion rate do you get? My experience has always been the same as Randy's in that they want to use a 6.75 exchange rate.

No they prefer tax transcripts with only run 6-8 pages/year. If you want to use tax returns instead then yes you have to print the entire return out with all applicable forms.

~ 45 minutes from time you leave HKIA to time you get to Hung Hom regardless of whether take airport express train/MTR or A21 bus directly.

Dont sweat it....while it is good to have at least some basic Chinese in HK/SZ/GUZ/BJ/SHA and even smaller cities you can get by without it. Take the names of hotels, etc. in chinese with you on paper and sharpen up your charades skills.

http://www.hongkongairport.com/eng/cbt/des..._c_gz_tran.html Hong Kong's train system is very easy to navigate. Since it used to be a British colony signs are in English as well as Chinese. It takes about two hours to get to GZ. I've only made the trek from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. I came in too late at night to catch the train so I ended up taking a bus to Kowloon and after getting tired of waiting for for the next bus I opted for a taxi to the port of entry in Shenzhen. It was only about 50 Hong Kong dollars. On my trip back I had a day to kill in Hong Kong so I spent the day exploring the city via the train system. Very impressive and modern train system. It will probably not only be faster but also get you into GZ closer to the consulate. The only caution I would give is to be on the lookout for pick pockets at the main train station in GZ. If possible have your sweet heart meet you at your train in GZ. You have three options besides the flight you have scheduled: 1. Take a bus directly from HKIA to Guangzhou city. You can get off at several different stops in the city. You will then need to get a taxi out to the Consulate Building. This is the easiest option from the airport (the bus companies are set up on the terminal departure floors and they all speak english). It will take you about 4 hours. See the information in Carl's link for HKIA Mainland Coaches. 2. Take a ferry directly from HKIA to Guangzhou city. You will arrive at Nansha port. From there take a taxi to Consulate Building. You do not have to go through immigration procedures or reclaim checked luggage at HKIA. You go to the Ferry desk in Terminal 1 and purchase your ticket. They handle your checked luggage. It will take you about 3-6 hours depending on how lucky you get with the ferry schedule matching your arrival at the ferry station. See the information in Carl's link for HKIA Ferry Transfer. 3. Take the Airport Express train from HKIA to city center. Then get on the HK MTR to the Hung Hom stop. This is the HK train station. You can also take Airport Express bus (A21) directly from airport to Hung Hom. I recommend this. At Hung Hom you can purchase tickets on the KCR East railway. This will take you directly (2 hr no stops) to the Guangzhou east train station. From here you can walk to the Consulate building in under 5 minutes. It will take you about 3-6 hours depending on how lucky you get with the train schedule matching your arrival at the rail station. See the attached link mapping the HK MTR and KCR East rail system. http://www.johomaps.com/as/hongkong/hkmetro_ch.html I have used all three options and investigated renting a personal car for direct drive from HKIA to Guangzhou. The price was more than a plane ticket for this option. My recommendation to you is to take the KCR train because it takes you directly to the Consulate Building area (GUZ East Train station). However if you feel uncomfortable about the connections and are not familiar with HK then the bus service from HKIA to Guangzhou is better. Depends on your comfort level. For me the most fun was the ferry transfer although I was anxiously wondering if my checked luggage would really arrive.