In March, at the fourth annual Prestige Brands Forum at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, participants discussed the difficulties China faces in branding.

"We have nothing close to Sony or Apple or Mercedes," says Elliott Yuen, a former Chief Executive of the clothing brand Shanghai Tang. "We still don’t have a decent international Chinese brand." Founded in Hong Kong in 1994 and boasting a following with its traditional designs, Shanghai Tang might be the closest thing the country currently has to a prestige clothing brand. The bigbest factor in its success has been its ability to demonstrate the value of Chinese culture in building a luxury brand.

"If Chinese companies are to go global, we must have Chinese elements and international elements," says Francis Chen, the founder of Franz Collection, a Taiwanese-based company that makes most of its upmarket porcelain in China and sells it through more than 6,000 stores worldwide. "In China, we can build very strong and powerful [brands]. A strong brand must have its roots in its culture. If Americans didn’t drink Coca-Cola, would you? If Americans didn’t watch Hollywood movies, would you?"