Last month I was interviewed in Canadian Business Online magazine about business in China after the Olympics. I have to admit I didn’t much like the article. The writing was fine enough, but the angle of the article was clearly blinkered: China can’t be good because it has pollution; it has corruption; it has human rights problems. China as The Evil Empire Revisited. It was an article I’d figure would come out of Fox; not out of Canada.

I think I’ve become spoiled here in China, interviewed by the likes of the China Economic Review and the Economist.com. I’ve come to expect that what I say (or what I write through email interviews) will be placed in a balanced context, not used as political fodder to pander to populist fantasies about the Yellow Horde.

Several things I learned from the interview, though: always read the relevant articles of the publication that requests an interview with you BEFORE you say yes; demand the right to read the context in which your words will be used; and …

John Candy was right: the Canadians need to be straightened away every now and then.