Retrospective: 15 Years of China Briefing

By Chris Devonshire-Ellis

During this New Chinese Year of the Sheep, we look back at 15 years of China Briefing.

Way back in the last century, there was a time when there was no internet, and communications were sent by regular post and fax machine. At the time, Dezan Shira & Associates was a small tax/legal consultancy in China, and in 1997 passed through a torrid time with the Asian Financial Crisis – painful times for a young and not very wealthy business.

By 1999, the worst was over, but a familiar problem remained – how best to market what remained a small and decidedly limited-budget business. But after a few rounds of ‘inspiration’ one evening at the Elephant & Castle Pub in Guangzhou, the seeds of China Briefing had been planted.

I decided to write a four-page newsletter titled “Setting Up Representative Offices in China”. I printed 500 copies off a mate’s photocopier, and spent a few hours in a taxi distributing it to the business centres of Five Star Hotels in Shenzhen and Guangzhou – in those days essential places of business for the travelling China executive.

The next Monday morning, the phone began to ring. Information about how to do business in China was scant in those days, and China Briefing filled that gap. Issue 2 was soon on the way, titled “Individual Income Tax in China”. This time around, 1,000 copies were printed off on my poor friend’s photocopier. The result was even more dramatic. Issue 3, “Establishing a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise in China”, rolled out in October 1999 and had a print run of 10,000.

 Today, China Briefing has expanded to become Asia Briefing, and produces titles on India, ASEAN and Vietnam as well as China. With the advent of the Internet, we have long since gone digital, and now boast a readership running into the millions of views every year. For some 15 years now, China Briefing has been a robust source of legal, tax and operational news and opinion, and retains its title to the first China business publication made publicly available for free. Meanwhile, Dezan Shira & Associates has become a multinational practice in its own right.

Asia Briefing now employs its own in-house team of about twenty editors, researchers and designers. But we have always felt close to SMEs and the entrepreneurial expatriate businessman or woman trying to succeed in China – to whom I would like to dedicate this 150th issue of China Briefing.

Even without funds, using a bit of brainpower can produce solutions that can project your start-up into what can become a successful multinational. Never give up, and understand that hard work can often be substituted for cash funding. If you can do that, your chances of success in what remains one of the most enigmatic countries in the world will be far more likely.

Best of luck to our entrepreneurial China Briefing audience, and many thanks to all of our friends, readers and contributors who have joined us since that first issue in 1999.

Selected China Briefing Cover Gallery

Each issue of China Briefing Magazine showcases a work of contemporary art – a highly recognizable style that has become synonymous with our brand. Some of the artists featured over the years have subsequently become very famous with the works now fetching six-figure sums when sold at international art houses, with some owned by Dezan Shira & Associates outright and now on display in the firms various offices.

China Briefing is an indispensable part of any business executive’s China reading list and has been since 1999. Obtain your subscription, which includes access to our monthly magazines, special offers on other publications and our complimentary weekly email round-up, by clicking here.

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