Myths about doing business in China
‘An excellent read.’
Humphrey Keenlyside, China-Britain Trade Review
‘Unlike many China-for-outsiders books, this one gets to the heart of how things are done here. It is written with a real love of China and Chinese culture, but never loses sight of the difficulties that newcomers will encounter.’
Fu Ping, HR Manager, Kraft Foods
I co-authored this book with Harold Chee. Harold is a man of many talents. He has written a large tome on international marketing, worked with many large corporations and is a teacher at Ashridge Business School, where I met him. He was brought up in a traditional Chinese family (part of the Chinese disapora, his earliest memories are of Zimbabwe), but is now a truly ‘international’ person, which enables him to see Chinese culture from the outside, too. Above all, he has seen westerners come to China and screw up, disastrously, through ignorance of Chinese ways and often through arrogance: ‘the western way is the best’. Not in China, it isn’t.
We decided to approach this vast subject via ten ‘myths’ about doing business in China. The first of these is that there is a unitary thing called ‘the China market’. There isn’t. China is as big as Europe and three times more populous, and, despite the apparent cultural homogeneity, there are huge differences between the regions, what they want and how they do business.
The next myth is that China will grow, painlessly forever. Various schools of thought contend, here: some are always predicting doom, others that this is a land of untrammelled opportunity. The truth, as Harold points out, is somewhere in between. There will be glitches, possibly severe, but in the long run China’s industrousness (and folk memory of poverty) will keep the economy moving ahead.
Maybe this is less common now, but in the past Harold has seen many westerners turn up believing China to be an ‘easy’ market. It isn’t.
Is China ‘Westernizing’? We believe not. It is changing and modernizing, but this does not necessarily mean following western paths. As I rewrite this section, we’re in the middle of economic turmoil – maybe the question we will be asking in the future is ‘must the West become more Chinese’?
Other myths tackled include that old chestnut about ‘inscrutable Orientals’ and the fear that Chinese people are xenophobic… There is a fascinating section on the concept of guanxi (connections), a word often used by westerners without really understanding what it means, and on the Chinese concept of friendship, something much deeper than most friendships in the West. The whole style of negotiating in China is different to the West, and if you do not understand this, you will feel you are bashing your head against the Great Wall. Above all, do not be fooled into thinking you are dealing with people who are naïve. Chinese children are raised on stories of strategy, of feuding kings, generals or courtiers outwitting each other. Harvard Business School is just an intro to a subject these people have been studying since they were five!
Behind all this looms the magisterial figure of Confucius. His works may not be on every Chinese person’s bookshelf, but his tenets and values inform all areas of Chinese life.
If there is one hint I would take from my working with Harold it is that if you are to do business in China, you must study the culture, both historic and present. Study it, respect it and, as far as possible, live it when you are in China.
