China is telling business: 'Don't mess with us', says expert

BBC News ^ | 09/12/2013 | BBC

[TexGrill]

Jim McGregor, Greater China chairman of communications consultancy APCO Worldwide, has given a critical assessment of the way China's government is treating foreign companies as part of its anti-corruption drive.

In a BBC interview with Juliana Liu at the World Economic Forum's conference in Dalian, China, Mr McGregor, a former journalist who has lived in the country for more than 25 years, said China's behaviour was "very worrisome" for foreign companies. "They don't know what's hitting them right now", he said.

The government is resorting to its traditional "toolbox" of coercive methods, he argues, including "shaming and ordering people to confess that they've done wrong so that your penalties can be minimised".

At the same time as offering entrepreneurs more opportunities, he argues, the Chinese government is saying: "Don't mess with us".

"They're just treating foreign companies the way they've treated their own for many years, and this is the way the Party does things", he says. "These are the tools it knows."

"What may be going on is they're telling foreign companies and they're telling private companies here: Behave yourself; remember we're the Party, we're in charge."

His comments come against the backdrop of a Chinese police investigation into alleged corruption by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the British pharmaceutical company accused of using travel agencies to channel up to £320m of bribes to doctors and officials.

[TexGrill]

Global business tip

[2ndDivisionVet]

Communists are thugs? Who knew?

[Cringing Negativism Network]

People we need to wake the “heck” up about China.

We need to bring back American businesses. Hire Americans, And stop buying stuff from Chicoms.

Now.

America first.

[LibWhacker]

And we’re supposed to worry that China is becoming a fearsome economic powerhouse that will crush America at it’s own free market capitalist game? Not a chance.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Yup, that is precisely what we need to start worrying about.

China by some calculations, now exports more than America.

According to some numbers, China exports more than anyone else.

China’s exports are growing. And every bit of Chinese manufacturing, is done by the Chinese.

It is all majority owned, by China.

Yes, I would say we need to wake up and quickly.

[nathanbedford]

I'll second that.

Anybody who looks at the trajectories has got to be concerned. No, I am not arguing that vectors always go in the same direction, but there is a physical law that says that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion and the motion of the United States is toward deterioration and the motion of China is at a rate of growth, even though recently somewhat reduced, which puts it on a path to surpass America.

This is not to say that China's without problems but it is to say that America shows virtually no political disposition to solve its own massive problems and it is living on borrowed time willfully oblivious to an onrushing reckoning.

[3Fingas]

America first. I agree with you. We need to do everything we can encourage to manufacturing in the U.S.

[3Fingas]

... We need to do everything we can to encourage manufacturing in the U.S. ....that is...

[TBP]

Then stop doing business with them.

[WVKayaker]

... His comments come against the backdrop of a Chinese police investigation into alleged corruption by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the British pharmaceutical company accused of using travel agencies to channel up to £320m of bribes to doctors and officials.

I went to the doctor last month here in Ormoc City, Leyte. Talking with my doctor, she told me about her world travel, going to "medical conferences" in Europe and cruise in the Caribbean. She travels MONTHLY at no expense to herself. Who do you think is paying the bills?

Of course, it is pharma companies buying their allegiance. Doctors make prescriptions. The Chinese are actually doing something about it. In Amerika, the people get Obamacare... which is bought and paid for by guess who?

Pharmaceutical companies provide the majority of financial support for staging the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Annual Scientific Assembly. In return they are allowed to dominate the physical and mental environment. The assembly is opulent and entertaining, but undoubtedly much of the expense is passed to the health care consumer in the form of high-priced brand-name prescription drugs. ...

[donozark]

These Chicoms are acting like Democrats...