Fast Talk

It would be hard to stop China's growth in the business world, regardless of the Olympics. China's image in these Games will be determined mostly by how welcoming the government is of foreign press. We all know how polluted the cities are, and we know of human rights violations. The Olympics really are just a PR stunt for the country at this point, and can't do any worse. The best thing the Chinese government could do is to allow freedom of the foreign press to publish/broadcast coverage back to their countries.

I think it will suffer. All this attention is putting the Chinese problems with pollution and with human rights in the spotlight.

I think it's too early to tell. They have a lot of obstacles such as a record amount of VIPs. But if they deal with the challenges well and end up with an overall successful event their brand can only benefit. I will say, however, that if I were them, I'd have an A team PR group on standby at all times!

It all depends on the current perception of the "brand" to begin with. Many people, including myself, know so little about what goes on in China, learning only about events through the media, that it's hard to say. It is without doubt that they have a terrible human rights record, but how much of that will be discussed during the Olympics, with the Chinese doing everything in their power to hide damaging information?

Then again....who knows: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25918026/

China knows that American's have a unbridled appetite. There has been a trade deficit with China my entire life and everyone knows it yet we aren't about to do anything about it. China's econmonic growth will make the US into borrowers and we will effectively become endebted to them. At this point unless some natural disaster occurs on the Chinese homeland we will end up at war with China in the next 20 years.

Despite the negative publicity of, say, the pollution problem, the Olympics will definitely help promote the China brand because throughout this whole process, people all over the world will learn more about China. They will learn that Asia is fragmented, that Singapore isn't part of China, and gain an insight into the world's most populous nation.

The word "brand" I think is misused here because I don't think most consumers think "I'm buying something that's made in China. Cool!" We just, especially in this tough economy, want their cheap stuff. So while the Olympics will bring attention to their issues ( environment, communist ways, civil right abuses and etc. ) in the end their role in the world as the supplier of cheap products will suffer much. Also keep in mind that they are going to clean things up for the Olympics. The China that we will see during the Olympics will be a different one for the one that actually is. So that will also help keep the damage to their image and "brand" in check.

Whatever the resultant might be, one thing is for sure... The world will come to know more details (whether for good or for bad) about China... Upfront, the economic rise will be sure.. but eventually, when more people like us start talking and take some action more issues will come into the limelight. But the bottomline is - when someone's time has come, there's no stopping it, no matter what!