Actually, they do. Considering how large China is and how powerful their economy is now, ignoring them will mean you are less competitive than the companies who don't. Even if you're a well meaning company, a competitor who doesn't mind China's policies will go there, make a lot more money than you, and buy you out.
The best way forward as a business that must operate in China to stay competitive is to hire lots of Chinese employees and send them to the company's "Western" country of origin in hopes that they'll learn our preference for freedom of expression and privacy and take it back home with them.
This is actually false and the type of dangerous logic that has brought us to where we are today. You are arguing the same tired logic that have been lost on most globalists today (whether out of ignorance or not):
1. Not entering the Chinese market during this time of growth is a lost opportunity.
2. Chinese citizens working and living in a free country will import these values back home (false)
#1 may be true in the short-term, if you are okay with selling out your users and giving up your IP but in the long term, you are essentially investing in the rise of a totalitarian state, which does not care about fairness and individual rights and freedoms. In the long term, investing in China today is effectively chipping away at democracy for our descendants.
#2 is false because it is derived from a western frame of thought. For the majority of Chinese citizens coming to the US to study or work, they do not care about knowledge, enlightenment, or the freedoms that the western civilization values so much. They are here for the thing that their society values most - $$$. Do not think for once that the Chinese care at all about western "freedoms".
> 2. Chinese citizens working and living in a free country will import these values back home (false)
> For the majority of Chinese citizens coming to the US to study or work, they do not care about knowledge, enlightenment, or the freedoms that the western civilization values so much. They are here for the thing that their society values most - $$$. Do not think for once that the Chinese care at all about western "freedoms".
The problem is that they've been deliberately kept ignorant about western freedoms (and fed a fair amount of propaganda to counter them), and that the West hasn't been trying hard enough to impart understanding and spread them. The false part of #2 is that merely working or living in a place does not lead to fast assimilation of its values.
When Chinese people actually learn about liberal values, they want them and fight for them:
I think you misunderstand my intent. My advice is not for governments or individuals, but rather corporations who are invested in their own survival. I don't think it's wise to disagree that a missed market opportunity can spell the end for a corporation. And in the wording I chose I am careful to limit my advice to "a business that must operate in China to stay competitive." I do not think you were careful enough to notice this, but hey I can see that your kneejerk reaction accidentally echoed my own opinion on what my country (the US) should be doing about China.
I mean, in the same breath of my aforementioned advice I could have added that "by the way, don't over-invest in China because the inevitable embargo of Chinese trade in the West might destroy your company."
But it's not dangerous to recommend that a business operate as a business. What is dangerous is to not have our governments intervene and to hogtie our politicians from making difficult choices when it comes to trade principles. For example, the US should have long ago forced China to recognize its patent laws. Additionally, China's human rights violations should be tried in international court regardless of its power and size (interestingly enough, so should the US's human rights violations.) I think it's all too obvious that the time has come for China to back down on its authoritarianism.
And that's what I vote for and that's what I support. But I don't think it's unreasonable to recommend a corporation act like a corporation. You seem smart enough to know this.
How are you sure of #2? Quite a few of my University classmates and colleagues who came from China have had their mindsets reasonably affected by what they have seen and what conversations they had. I agree that my reasoning is anecdotal; can you provide references for your argument?
This reasoning is anecdotal, but coincidentally it's my experience as well. Most of my Chinese friends have expressed the same change of mind as yours. If any of them are supporters of their government they've certainly kept it to themselves. As for everyone else, they're all frightened to return home.
This is actually false and the type of dangerous logic that has brought us to where we are today
#1 may be true in the short-term, if you are okay with selling out your users and giving up your IP but in the long term, you are essentially investing in the rise of a totalitarian state, which does not care about fairness and individual rights and freedoms. In the long term, investing in China today is effectively chipping away at democracy for our descendants
What does that have to do with the point that he brought up? Of course democracy is in peril - we're all climbing a local short-term maximum only to find that it will lead us all into a global long-term minimum. But what he said isn't false. It's true. Democracy will be in peril whether it's your company that sells out to China or whether its a competitor that sells out and then out-profits you, out-competes you, and then buys you out. Its an efficient market and not going to China will lead you to the local minimum.
What we need is firm government action on the part of the US, the EU, and Japan. We need to stop feeding this monstrosity that we've nourishing in Beijing and it isn't private industry that can do it.
I suggest a unified front against China in the form of tariffs and trade barriers. I believe it was a strategic blunder admitting China into the WTO. What is the historical precedent here?
Historical precedent: the Ming dynasty turned inwards and built the great wall of China. Just a few centuries later China was now a bit behind the west and was defeated in the opium wars.
> The Ming dynasty turned inwards and built the great wall of China. Just a few centuries later China was now a bit behind the west and was defeated in the opium wars.
Their problem wasn't that they built a wall, but rather they stopped looking past it because of beliefs in their own superiority.
The best way forward as a business that must operate in China to stay competitive is to hire lots of Chinese employees and send them to the company's "Western" country of origin in hopes that they'll learn our preference for freedom of expression and privacy and take it back home with them.
That's naive, totally not going to happen. I find many mainland Chinese people are proud of their country's political stance and return to the mainland proud of their allegiance to their country. From their perspective, I don't blame them. Foreigners and foreign nation states have not been good to China for what is literally called the Century of Humiliation in Chinese history. Hundred years of foreign states just trampling on China, dividing it up for themselves. They have a national PTSD regarding all of it.
So ANYTHING that resembles foreigners trying to influence China's future and meddle in China's affairs is met with a united anger. I know a lot of Chinese people who did masters degrees in the US. They are completely on the mainland government's side on every significant issue.
I've seen smart and successful mainlanders also be derisive of Chinese students who go overseas to study and then get "brainwashed" by foreign education systems.
I think the above link shows some really good examples that many mainlanders do not want to consider alternative views. They are firm in what their truth is, just as westerners are firm in what their truth is. It takes a very open and dispassionate mind to be able to understand both sides and figure out why the issues are so complicated. Unfortunately, I do not see many examples of such open minds on any particular side in this debate.
>That's naive, totally not going to happen. I find many mainland Chinese people are proud of their country's political stance and return to the mainland proud of their allegiance to their country.
Coincidentally, the opposite of my experience.
For the record, I think you've expanded my recommendation far beyond its scope. I don't think corporations are going to solve the problem in China no matter what they try. But this is my recommendation for how corporations "that must operate in China to stay competitive" should behave. It's limited to a certain audience and it's for their sole benefit.
I most certainly think China needs to be dealt with through international measures. But I also disagree that mainlanders are as willing to support China's government as you think. And like you, that's from my own personal experience. Take it as you will.
> Even if you're a well meaning company, a competitor who doesn't mind China's policies will go there, make a lot more money than you, and buy you out.
China is not turning out to be a land of milk and honey for western corporations. The best business decision for a Western business with regard to China may be to give up on it, because the PRC wants your local competitor to succeed, not you.
> The shift signals a possible end of an era. For years, it was customary for Western executives to tout their plans for dominating China—a market they felt they had to win as markets elsewhere matured. But foreign consumer brands now hold a smaller market share in the categories tracked by McKinsey & Co. than at any time since the global financial crisis, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of research from the U.S. consulting firm, incorporating data from Euromonitor and IHS Markit. Market share losses were particularly evident in categories such as pet food, passenger cars, videogames, smartphones and appliances.
> ...
> Some Western companies, including Carrefour SA, Amazon Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc., have decided China is too complex or costly to win for some of their major businesses, and have closed or sold them off after facing powerful local rivals who were able to largely control the market. Ford Motor Co. , Apple Inc. and others remain committed, but are struggling to meet expectations. Amazon said it continues to serve Chinese consumers through its cross-border e-commerce business and remains committed to China. Uber didn’t respond to requests to comment. Ford didn’t comment. Carrefour provided no further comment beyond its press release detailing the transaction.
> China is not turning out to be a land of milk and honey for western corporations. The best business decision for a Western business with regard to China may be to give up on it, because the PRC wants your local competitor to succeed, not you.
Agreed. Which is why my advice is limited to companies who will lose to competitors if they fail to compete in Chinese markets. Any company seeking to strike out in China without a local competitor will fail because of the reasons mentioned in the article. That said, any western company trying to compete with Chinese companies will also fail.
The best way forward as a business that must operate in China to stay competitive is to hire lots of Chinese employees and send them to the company's "Western" country of origin in hopes that they'll learn our preference for freedom of expression and privacy and take it back home with them.