Danone's increasingly bitter dispute with its Chinese partner, Wahaha, is likely to have an "unfavourable impact" on future sales of the French food group. In an ideal world, the two companies would have gone their separate ways long ago. But Danone wants to continue selling water under the market-leading Wahaha brand and it needs Wahaha's sales and distribution network in China...   more »

[INTERVIEW] The UK trade deficit with China has ballooned from £3.8bn to £9.4bn over the past five years. Can anything be done to reverse the trend? Eugene Chang, an adviser to the China-Britain Business Council discusses practical measures to help British firms engage more with China and is particularly keen to encourage the country's 4.3m SMEs...    more »

One of the biggest challenges for westerners looking to engage with China is of course the language issue. EngagingChina was thus heartened to read about an ambitious initiative by Michigan's Oakland County, to become the first county in the US to offer Mandarin in all its its schools...   more »

It took Microsoft over a decade and billions of dollars of lost revenue to learn how to do business in China. And it could it another decade before China takes its rightful place as Microsoft's biggest software market. However, Microsoft's China strategy seems to be paying off, at least if measured by the number of new customers it gets each year in China...   more »

A taskforce has been set up by the UK government to help British design businesses succeed in China's booming £3bn design market. The design-based industries are an area where the west has much to offer to China but many design businesses are small and so the prospect of engaging with China can be daunting...    more »