Paradise lost: the downside of doing business with China(gushing Western CEO = bloviating moron?)

The Times (UK) ^ | 07/16/09 | Carl Mortished

[TigerLikesRooster]

Paradise lost: the downside of doing business with China

For years Western bosses sung Beijing’s praises. Now they are learning the cost of dealing with a control-freak regime

Carl Mortished

We need a new primer on how to do business in China. Years ago, on a flight to Shanghai, you could spot an MBA graduate in every seat mouthing polite mantras — how to show “face”, how to behave at a banquet. Long on protocol, the books were short on useful information. What you really need to know is who’s in charge; which Communist Party official pulls the strings; what to do when a bureaucrat solicits a bribe or the IT staff sell secrets to a state competitor.

A manual for today’s China tyro would make grim reading. A former chairman of Sinopec, the country’s biggest oil refiner, was sentenced to death yesterday for taking bribes. And the harsh law of Chinese state capitalism does not just threaten locals: Rio Tinto, the mining giant, is trying to secure the release of four Chinese staff, including Stern Hu, an Australian of Chinese origin who is their chief iron ore negotiator. All are accused of paying bribes for “state secrets”. They were arrested during tense negotiations over iron ore pricing with China’s steel mills.

There has been no formal charge, just official accusations. The latest, in China Daily, an English language paper, accused Rio of bribing executives at all 16 Chinese mills involved in the negotiations to obtain sensitive information.

[TigerLikesRooster]

For years pompous CEOs have praised China as a paradise for businessmen. I remember hearing one crass speech while driving on a motorway in Shanghai. The boss described with awed admiration how the road was built with bulldozers razing thousands of dwellings, their inhabitants fleeing by the back door as the front wall collapsed. Businessmen marvel at the speed and efficiency of construction projects. They may think again if bulldozers arrive in their boardrooms.

I hate to be a worker-bee working for such a CEO, repeating his mantura and vowing to be a team player to march in lock-steps into supposed "Chicom Money El-Dorado."

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[Iron Munro]

Now they are learning the cost of dealing with a control-freak regime

What you really need to know is who’s in charge; which Communist Party official pulls the strings; what to do when a bureaucrat solicits a bribe or the IT staff sell secrets to a state competitor.

And this differs from life under the Obama tyranny because.......

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Company I work for has a Canadian division which was doing business in China. They had a problem with some software used to interface with another western vendor’s instrument. The interface was undocumented and the original software was written based on reverse engineering the interface, as best they could.

When the problem arose it had the potential to affect flight safety at an airport in western China. The Canadians devised a patch but there was a problem. In those pre-internet days (or at least easy access to the internet) they had to bring the software in on a physical medium. Because of the endemic corruption, they would likely have to pay a bribe to get it into the country. They actually sent two people with the software, a sales rep based in the United States and a woman from the Canadian subsidary.

There’s an irony in customs officials shaking down business people who are trying to keep the very airport they work at alive.

[Leisler]

MassPort anyone?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Ok, I hid the name of the country, but it makes the point ;)

Actually, in my experience, customs officials at Logan were next to inert if you didn’t look too wealthy. Never a problem for me.

[Wolfie]

That’s a real shame.

[pointsal]

bttt