Wednesday, April 19, 2006

China's Hu Turns Starbuck's Promotoer

I was glad to read I'm not the only one who noticed that China's leadership is focusing more on business as China's top man, President Hu Jintao tours the U.S. this week. A stop in Washington is last on his list of objectives. I can almost hear him defending this tour as the "It's the Economy, stupid!" business trip.

First, Bill Gates and Boeing (siging contracts worth $16 billion and $4 billion respectively), then the White House. With a record $202 trade defict with China, they've got all the cards, the playing table and most of the chairs in the current economic game.

Hu knows his target demographics well, making jokes about Starbucks, and making Bill Gates happy by putting Windows operating systems on Chinese computers, which also pushes away the Linux-based and cheaper software.

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