The Devonshire-Ellis saga continues.

It seems that everybody's favourite sino-charlatan, Chris Devonshire-Ellis has been at it again. Someone sent me this quote from a post by CDE on his website, posted just after the Mumbai terror attacks:

The fate of one American client of Dezan Shira & Associates staying at the Taj Hotel remains unknown with local staff unable to contact them or establish any verified presence of the individual concerned with either the city hospitals or police. The firm remains in close contact with his US head office and with US consular officials and the emergency services and is providing support for other clients who remain in the city. All Dezan Shira staff are accounted for and safe, although the local office, sited just behind the Taj Hotel has suffered “extensive” damage.

No knowing who that "quote" is supposed to be from, but he then went on to say this:

The Dezan Shira & Associates administration offices for China inbound investment at Raheja Center Point in Mumbai have thankfully escaped damage, however the practice offices, dealing with Indian investment will remain closed for the next week while damage - that fortunately is largely superficial - is repaired. We'll try and get some photos up probably on the 2point6billion site when the area around the Taj, which is still being sanitized is open again to traffic and pedestrians.

For the record, according to Dezan Shira's website, and all other available information, Dezan Shira has only one office in Mumbai, that being the one at the Raheja Center point, and that one is way out in the suburbs near the airport and miles from the scene of the violence. A quick check on the internet shows that the office actually belongs to Regus - a temporary/virtual office rental service. An associate of mine called the office to check whether they had suffered any damage and had the following conversation:

Trrring trrring. "Regus Mumbai how can I help you sir?" Yes this is . . I am calling to check, in the light of the Mumbai attacks, if we can come to Mumbai in January as we have read on the Dezan Shira website that their office was seriously damaged. "No Sir, no damage here at all, we are open for business" "Dezan Shira is one of our virtual clients, can I book a meeting room?" "No I will let you know once we have booked our tickets". "Thank you for calling Sir and have a nice day"

So there you have it, no damage whatsoever to the offices according to the people who work there. It's been more than two months since the attacks and no pictures have been posted and no answer to our enquiries as to why has been received from Dez Shira. Plus, it seems that Dezan Shira only has a 'virtual office' in Mumbai - otherwise known as a letter box.

Mr Ellis, you have some s'plainin' to do!

FOARP Sinofool of 2008

Wow. There was so much material to work with last year that I genuinely have had trouble making my mind up about this one. However, I finally managed to make my mind up - and the winner is . . . .

BianXiangBianQiao's article on this year's Sanlu tainted milk scandal!

It is heartening to observe that foreign elements and forces have little influence over the Chinese authorities, on either their legitimacy or policy preferences. The rabid anti-China freaks/activists hurling insults on the Chinese during the Olympic torch relays indeed “hurt our feelings” but at the end of the day can do little damage, no matter how hard they try. Events since the beginning of this year tell us that the dynamics of the Chinese social and political lives are insulated from the outside, although China is by no means isolated. The Chinese society, including its authorities, responds to the Chinese, not foreign powers or activists.

That's right, a company which produced tainted milk powder for years on end, and which was eventually exposed by the Chinese government after being tipped off by the New Zealand authorities is an example of how the Chinese government responds to the Chinese, not those dirty foreigners.

FOARP Sinopundit of '08

Has to be James Fallows. As much as I believe you have to be able to speak Mandarin to get a good grip on China, he seems to have managed without total fluency. His article on the trade deficit was probably one of the best things I've read on China in the past year, and given the volume of Sinopunditry we've seen in this Olympic year (a lot of it pretty awful and cliche-ridden, it has to be admitted), that's saying something - not much, but something. He's also a prolific writer and answerer of letters and emails, something which is worth a lot in my book.

A mention also must be made of Steve Dickinson, he doesn't write as much for China Law Blog as he might, but what he does write is always good. His piece on China's new anti-monopoly law was particularly good.

Before anyone says it . . . .

Israel and Palestine are once more at each other's throats, this time, perhaps more than ever, this fight takes on the brutal logic of a civil war, or any war between people's who live cheek-by-jowl with each other and where tit-for-tat is automatic and unavoidable. I therefore wholly endorse any moves to end the violence, I do not believe that Israel an achieve its goals through anything but a total occupation of the Gaza strip, I also know that the people of Gaza will not accept this - peace is therefore the only operable option. I whole-heartedly condemn Israel's refusal to allow foreign journalists entry to the Gaza strip, and have no illusions as to the reasons for this, indeed, we need only think of last year's violence in Tibet to know why this is being done.

Blog of '08

Has to be Fool's Mountain. I waste way too much time on that blog, but the discussion is always lively and usually polite.

What about '08?

I guess this seems a little late, but I don't believe in getting on with a year-end review until the year is already over and done with. For some reason my internet connection has been unbelievably slow of late, so the photos are going to have to wait, but the rest can got on with now.

FOARP Lesson of '08

Don't mess with Italy.


FOARP Discovery of '08

Fresh donuts and champagne! You seriously haven't lived until you have woken up to a plate of freshly cooked sugar-coated donuts and bottle of fine champagne - try it if you don't believe me.

Fine in '09 . . .

Well that's it for '08, and what a drag it was. Both personally and more generally, not a great year - friends and relatives losing jobs, tough exams and even tougher interviews - and as yet no pay-off. All I can say is this year can only be better . . .

What can one say?

Fascism.

Amazing!

Somalian pirates are running rings around the navies of the great powers, but an ingenious Chinese crew managed to fight of a band of machine-gun toting seadogs with beer bottles. Now why didn't anyone else think of that?



"I'll have a dozen bottles of your finest pirate-repellent please!"

Fenqing, defined.

Anyone who's been following the recent feeling-hurting spat between China and France in the Sino-blogosphere will have seen the article "Sorry, I will not boycott French goods" by blogger Liao Baoping (click here for the full ESWN translation, and here for the discussion thread on Fool's Mountain). Liao Baoping (who I haven't been able to find out that much about - any help?) received much in the way of approbrium for his article, here's what he had to say about it (translation by ESWN):

The classical patriots are rarely nationalistic angry young people [i.e., Fenqing]. Among the angry young people, nationalism is inside the core while patriotism is the outside packaging. When the inner core explodes, the outside packaging expands as well. The two frequently evolve together in a highly visible manner. Sometimes, it is fascinating to watch the process.

The extreme narcissism of nationalism can become a kind of mental disease. In the 1980's, Erich Fromm wrote in The Fear of Freedom:

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by „patriotism“ I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one‘s own nation, which is the concern with the nation‘s spiritual as much as with its material welfare-never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one‘s country which is not part of one‘s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.

In this heated debate over whether to boycott French goods or not, the various flaws of the angry young people manifested themselves in accordance with this quotation. If the angry young people tried to love their country in this way, the result is hurt and not love.

Some people both love and hate the angry young people. Therefore, they elevate them and then denigrate them afterwards; or they denigrate them and then elevate them afterwards. They keep alternating their attitudes (fortunately for them, the angry young people are usually forgetful). While nationalism does have the passionate force of idolatry, it tries to override humanity, truth and justice, and it can therefore become a force of destruction. Nationalism is a twin-bladed sword, and therefore it must be handled with extreme care. Otherwise, the angry young people can hurt the country tremendously.

Greatest. Danwei. Post. Ever!

Danwei tracks how many countries have 'hurt the feelings of the Chinese people' in the last few decades according to Chinese officialdom. Amazing!

Life imitates FOARP . . .

The first phase of Axl Rose's plan to take over China is complete: he has made the Chinese irate . . .

Chris Devonshire-Ellis is NOT a lawyer . . . .

This needs to be said over and over and over, and over. The man does not even have a law degree, despite what he has claimed in the past. Yes, he continues to make claims to be a legal professional - like in this comment at Silicon Hutong[link now broken, see updates for details]:

"I've been practicing on matters of China law and tax for over 16 years for goodness sakes - and just like any other expatriate lawyer - have not passed Chinese qualifications to do so."

For the record, Chris Devonshire Ellis is not registered as a legal professional anywhere, has not completed any formal schooling in law, or accountancy, or tax, or any area of study associated with them. He is not a registered trademark agent or patent agent. He has no professional qualifications of any kind. For a long time he claimed to have received "Church of England theology education", which, translated into English, apparently means that he went to a Church of England primary school, but this seems to be the limit of his education.

I'd like to go further, but first a little house-keeping. No, I have never met Chris Devonshire-Ellis, I am not associated with Lehman-Brown, the firm with which he had a long running dispute over meta-tagging (something which may or may not be trademark infringement), I am not a disgruntled former employee of his (although there seem to be more than a few of these). No, I'm just annoyed at seeing a man with such obviously dodgy credentials treated as an expert by people who ought to know better. His laughable pieces in the Beijing press on legal matters are a prime example of this. Here's him on IP protection in China in the Beijing Review:

"There is, however, a hole in the registration procedure for patents, which require they be registered and placed on public file for assessment prior to the patent being recognized as your own intellectual property. This means some entrepreneurial types scan such registrations specifically to steal designs and then immediately get into production even while your patent pending process is still ongoing."

The whole purpose of the patenting process is that we, the public, get to learn how to use an invention in exchange for granting the inventor the right to exercise a monopoly over the commercial exploitation of the invention. This system cannot work unless patents and patent applications are made available to the public, so that they can know in good time to avoid infringing the patent.

His knowledge of trademark law also seems a little off, for the record, the next time anyone says that they can get you a mainland China trademark by "going to the patent and trademark office in Wan Chai [i.e., in HK]", they likely don't know what they're talking about. I'm not qualified to say anything about taxes or accountancy, except to say that a company registered as a book-keeping company is not where I would go for advice on my company's future.

Final thought - always do due diligence on consultants, especially in a market with a still developing regulatory structure like China, because shysters abound.

Update: Wow, thank you to my anonymous commenter (email me whoever you are) I checked out Chris Devonshire-Ellis's Linkedin page. Yes, this is going a bit deeper into things than I would normally be comfortable with, but it really is amazing that someone could claim to have an LLB and then make this comment:

if you had researched further into that you would have found that the reason I took it down WAS precisely because it was wrong. The circumstances behind my not completing my exams at the time - more than three-quarters through my papers - however you are not aware of and it is not something I either wish to or have to justify to you, or anyone else. Suffice to say it had a lot to do with family tragedy and little to do with "fake".

So, the Dezhira website was wrong when they listed CDE as having graduated separately in law and marketing from two different universities, but CDE then goes and lists himself as having a law degree on his own Linkedin page.

Update part 2:

Silicon Hutong have taken that page down, but we all saw it folks, CDE clearly contradicted himself, and his previous statements regarding his qualifications.

Pure Crazy-Sauce

This from American commentator Dick Morris over at Real Clear Politics:

The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.

Yeah, that's right, the G20 meeting was actually a surrender to a 'socialist' and 'dying' Europe. Never mind the fact that the meeting actually acheived little, or that the proposed regulations would largely return the US to where it was in the nineties, or that Western Europe is far from 'dying' (From 1963 to 2003 per capita GDP in the 29 Western European states rose by an average 156% in real terms, compared to 137% for the US).