China will most likely announce strong sales numbers for February. Not as strong as in January, when sales of all motor vehicles shot up by 126 percent, but still strong. How do I know this without the official numbers? By looking at GM. GM has always been a good leading indicator for China’s sales. (Read More…)

„Itai!“ Or rather, „tong!“ Ouch, that hurts: Toyota boss Akio Toyoda bowed deeply to 300 reporters assembled in Beijing, and to 1.3b Chinese who could watch the drama live on national TV. Four times in one hour, Toyota’s chief  “apologized to customers in China for the company’s quality problems and emphasized the significance of the nation’s fast-growing market to his company,” as Shanghai Daily has it. There must be nothing more painful for an upstanding Japanese captain of industry than to bow deeply in front of the Chinese. But as they say in China: „bú tòng bù qiáng.” No pain, no gain.  Even more astonishing: (Read More…)