'Do Business in China' ↓

I read something like this in a popular blog about China: don’t complain about the lack of rules in China. You come to China to do business so you’d better follow its rule, ie no rule to follow, only guanxi and guanxi.

My goodness. What kind of logic is that? China has no freedom of speech. So when the foreign media or companies go to China, they should also practice censorship? Like what Google does?

That view threw me and upset me profoundly. I wonder if that view advocate has had any experience of doing business in China as a foreigner? Does he understand what the hell is like when there is no rule to follow and corruption and fear thrive? I hope he just shuts up!

There is a survey of sort saying that the number one reason for failure in doing business in China is pick the wrong partners. How true!

This is exactly what happened to me. My friend and I had a very good business idea and model, and we wanted to do the business in by ourselves I phoned up some government body to make enquries about the government regulations and the possibility of setting up a company of whole ownership by two of us. I could never get any clear answer on that. Instead I was recommended some partner that has close relationship with the government body. Things evolved and at the end, we hooked up with this recommened partner and his friend.

The Dismal Result

The result? Our business idea worked out and proved to be a success. Yet, we have sold our shares to the local partners and left China. Because we were very frustrated with our local partners’ behaviours, their lies and their competences, among other factors.

There are many details I don’t want to go into, but suffice it to say, if the business had been done without local partners, or with other better partners, the story would have been very different.

Connections and Influence?

They told you many good things about themselves when you first met them, such as good connections and influence - attributes supposedly esential in doing business in China. “My boss has this connection with who and who…” blablabla. And it seemed to us that they could do anything, accomplish anything - from setting up a company, finding a location, to recruiting staff. They are superman.

Well well… it took them four months to set up a joint venture company (they told us before it would take a maximum one month’s time); they gave us one potential candidate for the teaching posts (we were into a training business), though previously they said they had close connections with the education department and could get us at least 400 applicants. “The education department is just upstairs. We know them.”They said. What a joke! 

Another Lie

The lies are so many that I can hardly remember all of them. Here’s another one. They said they had arranged a phone company to come and install a phone in the office and the company had done the line linkage outside the office. A big lie! Because I later met the staff of the phone company who told me there was no such work as line linkage out side the office. They just started working on the phone line. Our partner lied to cover up the fact that they hadn’t contacted the phone company sooner and they lied to impress us that they had done something.

Another Lie 

Here’s another lie. They said the tax authority had contacted them to ask for a submission of the tax detail of the company. “We’d better settle the accounts,” our partern said. He had paid out of his pocket some expenses for the company so he rushed us to settle the account in order that he could have his money back. So the tax authority had contacted the company right? No, not true! Because our company was not properly registered yet - again, their “wonderful” work. When the company was not properly registered, it is impossible that the company would be contacted by the tax authority. And we didn’t find out our company was not properly registered unitl we were so frustrated and had decided to leave the company. 

On the verge of signing share transferral agreement, we were told that our lovely local partners hadn’t gone to the authority to properly certify we were shareholders of the company and as long as that was not done, the company was only temporarily established, not properly established. If it is not properly established, the issue of tax liability does not exist.

Story Never Ends…

Well, up to this point you may have noticed that we also had problems with signing the share transferrable agreements. Stories evolved on a daily basis… Doing business in China is surely not for those faint-hearted.

More of the story later in this space…

It is said that students on the Mainland China have higher level of Chinese language than those in Hong Kong. But my experience of reading job applications from mainlanders has informed me that this conventional wisdom does not stand. I was simply appalled by what I saw. 

Just to name a few things: typos, wrong usage of expression, grammar mistakes, and copying and paste of old applications without even changing the date and name of the organisation concerned.

Some of the applicants are postgraduate students having just finished a Master’s degree in Chinese language.

Out of the 100 or so applications, there may be four or five applications that meet the minimum standard, meaning that no critical mistakes mentioned above have been made.

Some applicants have no regard for job-seeking courtesy. They called you up and said “I am around and I want to come to your office to see you.” When I told them that they had to wait until the screening process finishes and for further notification, they said: “But I am around, can’t I just come and see you?” I was on the verge of speechless.

Hello everybody. This is my first blog in this space. So much to tell but seemingly nowhere to start. Of couse I can write sth about China, since I am just back from this country, after starting a business there about half a year ago.

Everybody says China is the place to go for business. Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are teeming with foreigners working there or looking for opportunties to work in China. I knew before going to China that it would be a tough place to do business - no legal protection, having to have connections, bureaucratic procedures…Somehow, I went there still, believing that I would not be the unlucky one …

Obviously I was so so wrong. I will write more in this space about the things that happened to me, but for now, suffice it to say that this county seems so void and souless. The people (it is a generalization, I know) in the cities think only of one thing - how to make money. There is no politeness, nor courtesy.

The ridiculous thing is even those people who have experienced the tragic Culture Revolution, and whose youth have been completely wasted, have not turned out to be better persons after going through all the sufferings and hardships. To the contrary, they joined in the rush to make money and have turned very…

If you ask people in the mainland china what they believe, I am sure you won’t get anywhere. Because there is a massive belief void in the country. Communism, in pursuit of the common good, is gone. Socialism? You know that this is a country with a huge supply of cheap labour with no protection, ready for exploitation and for some to make big money from. Materialism? Definitely. Affluence is everywhere to be seen, from the expensive cars hogging the street in the big cities to expensive restaurants and hair dressers’ serving the new breed of wealth and luxury.

I recently read a Chinese book in which some famous writers, film directors and musicians who grew up in the 80s talk about the changes in China they have witnessed. All, without exceptions, have a pessimistic tone to what they see in the modern China. They voice out one feeling: so souless in this country. Is it a coincidence or does it carry certain degree of truthfullness to the description of modern China?

The irony is, people from all over the world flock to China to make business, find job opportunies or study. What can they find? Money? Big business? Chinese culture? I serioulsly wonder. Are they all happily living and working in China?