Guess Where Coca-Cola Is Investing $4 Billion

[samurainoir]

>would have been hard pressed to realize I was in a communist country at first glance.

I think since the 90's they've only been nominally communist.

.

I wouldn't quite go that far. Past the Lacoste shirts and Baskin Robbins, the People's Propoganda Machine was still hard at work. NEVER take a bus tour in China if you can help it... They will keep you endlessly in factory tours where they hard sell you into buying silk sheets, green tea, and tiny snuff bottles with goldfish and dragons painted on the inside, while rushing you through truly significant and historical sites that you want to be spending your time exploring. Plus The People's version of Cirque de Soliel... Which I can't even begin to quite put into words other than it was like being punched in the face by a singing dancing laser light show.

Then there are these wake up calls that remind us that Tiananman Square wasn't really that long ago.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei arrested in ongoing government crackdown - The Washington Post

But yeah, hard to wrap your head around the fact that Coke and McDonalds are the most powerful forces of change in our world and that this is ultimately how you take down communism when the cold war gives it up.

[Hector]

Doesn't surprise me either. I spend quite a bit of time researching public companies and found out that KFC is more popular than McDonalds. Apparently, they prefer fried chicken to Big Macs.

This is true.

Burger joints seem to struggle in China...but not KFC...they love that fired chicken...lol.

[Den82]

Yay for Americanization. Now they too can feel like they're living in a commercial when they walk down the street and get to eat lab experiments posing as "food". I'm sure that will ease the pain of having to work 12 hours for a bowl of rice.

[Adam West]

There is a fast food style Chinese restaurant growing pretty fast in China called "Country Style Cooking"....sounds like down home feel good American food but is actually Chinese food made inexpensively to appeal to the growing middle class. The company went public last year and although the stock price isn't moving much (I think it is down from its IPO price), it seems to be growing at a fast clip. Small company Chinese stocks trading on the NYSE are getting hammered right now because there is suspicion that many of them are cooking their books. Apparently, this is true for some companies but Wall Street has thrown the baby out with the bath water. If you have the ability to seperate the wheat from the chaffe; you will eventually make a killing in some of these companies.

[samurainoir]

This is true.

Burger joints seem to struggle in China...but not KFC...they love that fired chicken...lol.

Although Mcdonald's is quite popular in Hong Kong, where it's been established for at least forty years. You can now have your wedding at the McDonalds there.
Which Star Couple Should Have a Fast-Food Wedding? - OK! Magazine - The First for Celebrity News

In Japan McDonald's biggest competition is Mos Burger which caters more to the palette of the Japanese.

[Bill]

I'm sure that will ease the pain of having to work 12 hours for a bowl of rice.

I'm sure that still exists, but there's some money flowing to people that twenty years ago would have never have had that chance.

[Hector]

Although Mcdonald's is quite popular in Hong Kong, where it's been established for at least forty years. You can now have your wedding at the McDonalds there.
Which Star Couple Should Have a Fast-Food Wedding? - OK! Magazine - The First for Celebrity News

In Japan McDonald's biggest competition is Mos Burger which caters more to the palette of the Japanese.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Mos_Burger.jpg

Pretty cool!

[Den82]

On one hand I really don't care what goes on in other countries, to be honest. On the other hand, I sympathize with those individuals who do NOT want to see their country Americanized. This is mostly true of Europeans (not most, but a good number).

I don't blame them for not wanting to see their homeland loose it's national face and turn into a strip mall of trash. Let's face it, Corporate America would destroy everything in order to do that.

I know everyone will say it's what they want, but it's western seduction.

They rotted out the teeth of many Americans and turned them obese caffeine depended zombies. Now it's Chinas turn and let's pump 4 billion into it!

[ctc]

>Past the Lacoste shirts and Baskin Robbins, the People's Propoganda Machine was still hard at work.

Oh, definitely; but they’ve been having some weird.... circumstances? Problems? Side-effects? Dunno the correct term, but it ties in with:
>I sympathize with those individuals who do NOT want to see their country Americanized.

It’s not exactly “Americanization” any more, since the biggest companies are multinational. They owe no loyalty to any nation and exist almost as nations within nations. That’s what makes enforcing laws against them so difficult. (Well; that, and the deep pockets.)

Back in the 90's China made a HUGE push for foreign investment, and they got it. What the government didn’t expect was how rapidly the middle class would rise, and how difficult dictating to the multinationals would be. When the state was running production everything was tickety-boo; but once they let outside corporations set up shop things got messy. “Er.... The Party says you’re supposed to do it like this....”

“Nope. And if you don’t go away we’ll pack up and leave.” Same stuff we’ve been dealing with here; but they got it all at once. Even someone as innocuous as KFC pulling out would look bad for The Party, BE bad for the economy, and cheese off a public that can now afford, and desires such things.

‘Course, it works both ways, and in our example KFC would be walking away from a lot of profit.... but this is a game WE’VE been playing for almost 50 years, and we haven’t even figured out the balance yet.

Don C.