Sinomania!

The Boao Forum for Asia begins this week and lasts through the weekend at a luxury hotel on the coast of tropical Hainan Island. The annual gathering of business and political elites is often called the "Chinese Davos" which is odd since there is already a Chinese meeting of the World Economic Forum called the Annual Meeting of the New Champions held the past 3 years in Dalian or Tianjin.

This year's Boao focuses on "Green Recovery" with confabs on sustainability, low carbon objectives, all clues to where investment focus is going. Former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will be on a capital markets panel. There will be discussions on protectionism, consumption in Asia, hot real estate prices with SOHO Chairman Pan Shiyi, China-India Cooperation, the China-Taiwan Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, and "unleashing the power of the private sector."

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping will deliver a keynote address and be joined by current politicos Robert Hormats, US Under Secretary of State, Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Taiwan government officials, and many others.

Business leaders include executives from many American firms including PepsiCo, Harbinger Capital, Goldman Sachs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley (of course), the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Nielsen, Prudential, and so on. The activities of the Boao Forum challenges the line of mainstream media that China is "closing for business...."

Labels: alternative energy, foreign investment, foreign relations, morgan stanley, reunification, taiwan