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Cracking the China Market, Then and Now

The latest guru to inspire a crop of books about doing business in China died 60 years ago. Carl Crow was an American advertising agent who arrived in Shanghai in 1911 with one suitcase, and stayed three decades.

His book 400 Million Customers was a blockbuster hit in 1937, and recently has spawned a crop of modern-day imitators.

Many of his insights about Chinese customers — and doing business in the Middle Kingdom — still hold true today, despite a half-century of communist rule.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Beijing Correspondent Louisa Lim is currently attending the University of Michigan as a Knight-Wallace Fellow. She will return to her regular role in 2014.