Episode description

Mark Forman, who has lived and worked in Taiwan for over twenty years and is host of the podcast Big in Asia, is our featured guest. (His websites: business, personal, podcast.)

An eye-witness to the trends which are shaping Asia's rapidly changing future, Mark Forman is an American businessman from Brooklyn New York who studied Chinese language and culture at the University of Arizona and, during the last two decades, has traveled a great deal in China as well as within many of its neighboring countries.

In today's interview he describes his personal observations of the changes sweeping the Asian world and especially Greater China. Greater China is a term commonly used in business and economics to indicate not just mainland China, but also the regions that it governs, such as Hong Kong, as well as the regions it does not govern, such as Taiwan. 

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 9, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 59 minutes]

While the topics covered in this interview range all over Asia, much of the focus is on mainland China and its relationship to other countries. This is because of all the countries in Asia, China has the biggest influence on the rest of the world and yet (since the Bamboo Curtain is only now beginning to fall) for most Westerners it is the least understood. 

Topics discussed include: the transformation of China from an anti-business communist economy to a pro-business free-market economy; the rise of Chinese consumerism; how internet access (including Google and Wikipedia) are eroding Chinese government censorship and forcing a new openness; the possibility of democracy taking root in China, and how a non-western democracy might be defined; the 2008 Olympics in Beijing; and of course much, much more.