Today Cisco announced the American way dealing with the fastest-growing and soon-to-be largest Internet user market in the world - China. They are doubling their investments to $16 billion in the next 5 years. This will be for manufacturing, joint ventures (Alibaba e.g.), venture capital investments and education into data networking training centers. The WSJ also mentions that they plan "to establish in China its first world-wide green-technology center, designed to address concepts like energy efficiency, reduction of electronic waste and emission reduction." This seems to be the right move in the light of the strong local competition from Huawei and ZTE and other, smaller players. As usual Cisco is moving aggressively and in BIG steps, just what the Chinese value too.

I am back in beautiful Switzerland after a week long trip to China. I was visiting Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and a few other places inland near Shanghai. More than 10 years ago I lived for 6 months in Shanghai and then traveled from my base in Hong Kong very frequently to many places in mainland China to do business for about 2 years. My observations on this trip now are purely random and compare China how I have it still in my memory from more than 10 years ago. Let's start with the good things and then also address the not - yet - so great.

Infrastructure. Not surprisingly the building boom has changed the cities dramatically. Investments in real estate, road infrastructure, airports and the subways (waterways I had not used) can be seen and let the masses of people move relatively smoothly (apart from the still frequent traffic jams and packed subways during peak hours). Just walking around one can see an obvious change to 10 years ago. They must have banned bicycles from the inner cities. I remember the bike chaos where thousands of bikes were waiting at the traffic junctions on all sides. They now have traffic lights so no more people standing there and managing the crowds and the bikes are now "replaced" by cars. People otherwise take the subway mostly, and sometimes buses.

Pollution. One surprise for me was the fact that the air pollution I had in my memory was gone as well. At the time Shanghai had more construction cranes in operation than all of them in North America combined. So you can imagine how the air must have looked and smelled like. My shirt collars were black inside after wearing them for a day and made you wonder how your lungs would look. Those times are gone and also most of the cranes can not be found any longer as most construction work is finished now.

People on the street. One dramatic change happened to the people you can see in the streets and in shopping malls. They are nearly dressed now like you would expect them to be dressed in Europe or North America. While you still see some wearing traditional clothes the advertisements of western culture have been successful. I saw many ads on billboards for clothes or perfumes e.g., where you could see only Western models.

After more than 10 years I am back again in China for a week-long business trip. Our customer reserved a hotel in the so-called French Concession area with a green garden even, which is quite unique here. The city has developed further out from the Bund area, and across the Huangpu river the new Pudong business district has emerged. The last time I was here there was one one tower (The Pearl Tower) but nothing else, not even the new airport. Very interesting was the new train station in the south west of the city. A round airport-like glass and steel construction was built with the train platforms below the building. You have to check in and x-ray your luggage like at the airport (no passport check though). A high speed train now connects Shanghai and Hangzhou in the south west and the 170km journey is done in about one hour. Of course the average transportation even in Shanghai is mostly not that high-tech yet...