The newly established Law and Business Center at Wenzhou-Kean University (WKU) recently held its inaugural international conference on business exchanges and opportunities and legal risks and considerations for Chinese business going global and for foreign businesses in China on Jan. 12.
The center’s first event featured presentations and discussions between diplomats, government officials, legal practitioners from top Chinese law firms and representatives of the business community. They all shared experience and case studies, thoughts on viable opportunities for business exchanges to be considered by entrepreneurs, as well as concerns and considerations relating to the international activities of Chinese and foreign businesses in their international endeavors. In line with the university’s slogan “Start Here, Go Anywhere,” the conference featured speakers from all six permanently inhabited continents.
WKU is one of only three of its kind – a Sino-American institution of higher learning (the other two being NYU in Shanghai and Duke in Kunshan). It is the Chinese campus of Kean University, and home to over 4,000 Chinese and international students and more than 200 faculty members, also from all continents.
According to WKU, in complex times for the international system, education platforms are best positioned to bridge gaps in knowledge and understanding, and help address blind spots, so that purely political issues do not get in the way of business exchanges that ultimately drive the global economy. WKU itself is also a reminder that international success stories are often the product of dedicated regional support – as Zhejiang Province and the state of New Jersey are sister regions, as are the city of Wenzhou and Union County.
Some of the insights from the conference revealed that the City of Wenzhou is a symbol of early entrepreneurship – businesspeople from here were among the first and most successful to explore opportunities in Europe after China opened up in the early 1980s. They were so successful that in cities like Shanghai they are referred to as the reason why local property prices increased dramatically.
Wenzhou itself has a population comparable of that of New Jersey – about 9 million, while Zhejiang Province is home to almost 60 million.
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