Managing The Dragon

Several weeks ago, the Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) was in the news when it announced that its affiliate, Jiangling Motors Corporation, Ltd. (JMC), has agreed to acquire 100 percent of Taiyuan Changan Heavy Truck Company (Taiyuan). For JMC, which currently makes light trucks and sports utility vehicles, this acquisition marks its first entry into China‘s […]

The global economy is much more stable today than it was at this time last year, but that doesn’t make 2010 any easier to predict. In January 2009, the debate was all about numbers. Would China’s economy grow by 8 percent as the government was predicting, 7.2 percent as the World Bank concluded, or considerably […]

Events continue to unfold in China’s rapidly changing automotive industry. The Financial Times summarized the most important of the recent developments: Beijing Automotive Industry Corp. wheeling its shopping cart around the world in search of distressed car assets like Sweden’s SAAB; Geely negotiating to acquire Volvo; and last but not least, General Motors selling majority […]

It’s hard to believe that just over 10 years ago Geely was producing $100 motorcycles for China’s local market for transportation. When Li Shufu, the company’s visionary founder and chairman, announced in 1997 that he wanted to enter China’s fast-growing passenger car business, everyone in the world, including nearly everyone in China, thought it was […]

When we look back 20 years from now, the year 2009 is likely to be viewed as the year in which the baton of leadership in the global auto industry passed from the United States to China. For the last 100 years, the American car market and American carmakers set the pace in the global […]

When the economic history of China is written, it will show that, to date, there have been three major inflection points in the country’s economic development — events that have triggered major changes in the direction of the country. First, of course, was the opening of China to the outside world under Deng Xiaoping in […]

One of our good friends from the Chinese media was gathering background information for a story she was writing on the auto industry and came over to speak with me. We sat down and discussed a wide range of issues that dealt not only with China, but also with global trends. Apart from any insight […]

The combination of a housing slump and oil at about $140 per barrel is proving to be the straw that is breaking the back of the U.S auto industry. U.S. auto sales plunged in June as the economic slowdown and high gasoline prices have hit all U.S. carmakers hard. Sales were down 28 percent at […]