This commentary originally appeared in Forbes .

When President Barack Obama arrives in China for his first official visit next week, he will find a very different nation from the one President George W. Bush first went to almost a decade ago. No longer is China a net recipient of aid. On Sunday it promised $10 billion in loans to Africa and forgave the debts of several countries. Another hundred million Chinese have been pulled out of poverty, and the nation is now the world's second-largest market for luxury items. Consumers buy $6.5 billion worth every year.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

Rumor has it that only 5,000 iPhones have been sold in China since the device's Oct. 30 debut. What happened? Apple's (AAPL) partner in China, China Unicom (CHU), had predicted sales of 5 million in the first few years. Many analysts argue the iPhone's high price (the 16 gigabyte 3GS model goes for about $730 up front) is stopping Chinese consumers from buying. Is that really the explanation?

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes

China's gross domestic product grew 8.9% in the third quarter. The country has become key to growth for even the largest multinationals. Paul Otellini, the chief executive officer of Intel, recently said, "Thank God for China. They buoyed, certainly, our company through the depths." Yum! Brands, the fast-food conglomerate, generates a third of its business there, and brands like the Gap and Tiffany have announced expansion plans. As China becomes ever more crucial, here are three myths about business there that you should avoid falling for:

Myth No. 1: China's economy is export-led.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach have both been arguing that China needs to spur its domestic consumption by fixing its creaking health care and pension systems, so that older people start to spend. Will that really work?

The typical Chinese retiree has lived through a world war, a civil war, famine, the Cultural Revolution and political economic turmoil that make the current malaise smacking the U.S. look like almost nothing. Do you really think they will trust new policies so much that they stop saving and suddenly start spending? It is doubtful. Moreover, older Chinese have mostly missed out on the economic boom since 1978. They retired before the gold rush of the last few years, or they've been working in state-owned enterprises where the pay stays low. Even though their savings rate hovers around 60%, they don't have much money socked away.

This column originally appeared in Forbes.

It happened to Coca-Cola (KO) on September 14 and to Rio Tinto (RTP)a month before. Even the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has been hit. The Chinese government has now investigated employees at all three of those companies in high-profile corruption cases. At Coke, a bottling plant employee was accused of taking $1.5 million in bribes.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

Last week a drunk and deranged man stabbed two people to death and injured 14 others in Beijing. A few days later, another disturbed man stabbed a foreigner. The police response was not only to arrest both miscreants but also to ban the selling of kitchen knives at large retailers, including Wal-Mart (WMT), until after Oct. 1, the National Day holiday. That might seem an ineffective overreaction to tragic but isolated events, but it says a lot about how the government works in China and how businessmen need to navigate it.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes

It has been 52 weeks since the end of capitalism. Except that it didn't end, as so many predicted, after Lehman fell on September 15, 2008. Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump remain enormously popular. The bankers at firms like Goldman Sachs (GS) are still reaping massive profits as they develop new carbon credit and insurance products.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes

What would you do if several of your employees bludgeoned a customer to death? That is the nightmare scenario Wal-Mart (WMT) executives are facing in China after five workers allegedly beat a suspected shoplifter to death on Aug. 30 in Jiangxi, China.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

When I first moved to China, in the mid-1990s, every time I went outside my throat felt like someone had taken sandpaper to it and my eyes burned in pain. At the time, 80% of the country's electricity came from coal, factories belched soot and grit into the air and I could count on one hand the number of times a year I saw blue sky. The World Bank had found that 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities were in China.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft (MSFT), gets it. So does the former Baltimore Oriole baseball great Cal Ripken Jr.

This commentary first appeared in BusinessWeek

Lawmakers in Washington continue to struggle over President Obama's proposed reforms of America's health-care system. On the other side of the world another country has gone much farther, much faster, in addressing the need for change to its health-care system. As part of its $586 billion stimulus package, China has unveiled an aggressive plan to revamp its health-care coverage, providing a counterpoint to America's struggle with reforms.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes

Ignore them at your own risk.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes

As the world now knows, last year a guitarist named Dave Carroll was sitting in a window seat on a United Airlines (UAUA) plane at O'Hare airport in Chicago when he looked out and saw baggage handlers hurling guitar cases through the air. He pointed it out to flight attendants; they responded with indifference. When he arrived in Nebraska, he found that his instrument had been smashed. After months of complaining to the airline and getting no response, he wrote and performed a song, "United Breaks Guitars," and posted it on YouTube. It was viewed more than 3 million times in its first 10 days.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

BlackRock's (BK) acquisition of Barclays Global Advisors (BCS) for $13.5 billion has left bankers hoping that the slowdown in mergers and acquisitions has now hit a bottom and their bonuses can start going back up again. Advisers like Boston Consulting Group are arguing that now is the time, and companies must move quickly to make acquisitions at rock-bottom valuations.

This column originally appeared in Forbes.

Yes, General Motors (GM) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday, June 1, and its share of the domestic auto market continues to sink. However, its operations in China have been shining. In the first five months of 2009, GM's sales there increased 33.8%, to 671,148 units. They were up 75% in May over the previous year. While the company shutters factories and lays off workers by the thousands in the U.S., it has announced plans to build a new factory in China and unveil 30 new or updated models, with the goal of doubling its sales in the country to 2 million vehicles within the next five years.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

How do you lead your company through a time when all the old rules are overthrown, when the only certainty is uncertainty? Managers have been looking near and far for answers to that question.

This commentary originally appeared in Forbes.

At a time when Main Street is calling for the scalps of business titans from John Thain, the former chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, to Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America (BAC), somehow Donald Trump remains unscathed. Not just unscathed but extremely popular.

This article originally appeared in BusinessWeek.

Despite the slowdown in China's economy, consumers plan to open their wallets more in 2009, especially for entertainment and education.

This article originally appeared in Forbes.

Last week the Chinese government rejected Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO) planned $2.3 billion acquisition of the Chinese company Huiyuan Juice, despite Coke's announcement a week earlier that it would commit $2 billion on top of that to expansion in China over the next three years. When the government declared the deal dead, a chill blanketed boardrooms around the world. Is the climate for foreign firms in China cooling? Is protectionism rearing its ugly head?

This article originally appeared in Forbes Magazine.

In the last week or so, we've seen a mini bull run on the stock market, but the U.S. economy is still in bad shape. Another half-million Americans lost their jobs during Barack Obama's second month in office. But the president's approval ratings remain high, despite the rocky economy and the uncertain futures of millions of Americans. Those high ratings reflect the success the president has enjoyed in demonstrating leadership and confidence.