Catching up with my China Business Network listening this morning, I find that host Christine Lu has been talking to a few of my friends recently, including Kaiser Kuo, of Ogilvy China, and Steve Dickinson of Harris & Moure (whom you may know from China Law Blog).

Kaiser talks about his his unusual route into the world of Chinese business and why he is not, really, a rock musician but plays one on TV. (I paraphrase.) He also talks about what's hot in the Chinese Internet right now. To his mind, peer-to-peer content sites and are where the action is now, although he spots some challenges ahead in their dependency on "unlicensed content". The question is, can these sites hold audiences if they ditch pirated material? He also talks about why people wanting to do business in China should focus on what's the same about business here rather than what's difference.

Steve gets deep into the topic of the Chinese employment law, already covered extensively in China Law Blog. This long interview is worth listening to in its entirety. But I thought this was particularly interesting:

"The background for [the new employment law] in the initial period was a feeling that the Chinese government had been going so hard in industrializing and creating a modern industrial base in China that they had really forgotten that this is a socialist country, not a capitalist country, and the government is supposed to be taking care of the workers, not the employers. So the feeling was that they needed to correct that imbalance. The law got stuck, however, because it is very controversial and highly opposed, frankly, by employers in China. [It] has nothing do with foreigners. [The] local Chinese employers are very opposed to this law."

Steve also talks about the contradiction of mandatory "voluntary layoffs" and why the Shanxi brick kiln scandals of earlier this year may have helped to propel through a problematic law. In referring listeners to further information on the topic he cites the importance of China blogs, including a plug for yours truly. That's an unearned run, as all I did was point at the China Law Blog post above and say that it would cause PR problems, not just legal problems. But thanks anyway!

Both are worth a listen.

Update:

And an interview with Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.org as well.