Weekly Review: Given that I haven’t done a review of great blog posts about China recently, I’m throwing out an unscheduled Weekly Review in an effort to catch up. Here are four interesting blog posts or news items from the past week that will help you reflect profoundly upon satirizing China, remember to actually be involved in your business, figure out how to set up that China business you should be involved in, and consider treating poor people differently from rich people.
Stanford University Professor Takes The Onion Seriously
About two weeks ago, pretty much all the blogs about China reported on satire news website The Onion doing a China Special, redesigning their website to look as if they’ve been sold to a Chinese company, and publishing a ton of China-specific articles ranging from funny to lame. The Onion has, of course, since moved on and back to their original design now that the special is over (but archived for posterity here).
One of the more interesting reactions to The Onion’s China special is the following essay by a Stanford professor named Haiyan Lee. Apparently, it was originally posted on The China Beat but was also reprinted on Shanghaiist since the former is currently blocked in China by the Great Firewall. Here’s an excerpt:
No savvy Onion reader should be fooled by this non-too-subtle effort at mocking the sorry state of the publishing industry and the corporate takeover of the media in contemporary America. No one, really, should even be surprised that a fictive Chinese corporation is the villain of this imaginary apocalypse. After all, wasn’t GM’s Hummer just sold to an obscure Chinese company called Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd.? Bizarre as it may have sounded, that piece of news shouldn’t have surprised too many either. For better or for worse, China has been on Americans’ mind for quite some time—at least those Americans who have been paying attention to the intricate linkage between the Chinese compulsion to save and the subprime mortgage crisis that has brought the American economy to its knees, to the chattering class ratcheting up the specter of “China rising,” to the media coverage of the Beijing Olympics and the ethnic riots, to news stories about poisonous toothpaste, carcinogenic toys, and tainted milk powder.
In the new millennium, China’s has mostly shed its Cold War cartoonish image as an evil Communist regime that hates freedom and democracy but cannot stop its citizens from loving those beautiful ideals, at least not in their basements (they must have basements where they can write subversive poetry, build little replicas of the Statue of Liberty, and dream of rising up against the gerontocrats ensconced behind the Gate of Heavenly Peace). Today, the Chinese are viewed with suspicion not as ideological fanatics (that role has been taken over by Islamic fundamentalists) but as relentless profit-seekers bound by neither law nor conscience. Thus a Chinese company coming out of nowhere to take a stab at acquiring a piece of what was once the pinnacle of American industrial achievements was truly a remarkable event whose significance could not be adequately marked by mainstream media trying to steer clear of fear-mongering. Thus it has fallen on a cabal of professional satirists to spell out its full implications.
Emphases mine. Lee’s essay is very long with a sophistication befitting a Stanford professor of Chinese literature and civilization (prepare yourself for a few uncommon words like “mordant” and “arriviste“). It doesn’t just offer biting criticism of China and the United States but also veers somewhat philosophically into the very nature of politics and journalism as humor, before leaving you with both the conclusion that China brought others’ derision upon itself and the uncomfortable feeling that our derision springs from our own subconscious insecurities. Oof, heady stuff, eh? As such, I highly recommend reading the entire essay for yourself at either The China Beat or Shanghaiist »
A Cautionary Tale About Chinese Employees Examined
Dan of China Law Blog takes “A cautionary tale from China” by the Financial Times to task. The original article retells a sordid story of a German advertising company getting screwed by its Chinese employees, which Dan corrects to it being screwed by its own idiotic German boss for mismanaging (hell, failing to manage) the business:
So what did the German company in the FT.com article do wrong? It was not wrong for it to go into China and it was not wrong for it to put a local Chinese in charge. Its mistake appears to have been putting way too much trust in a small core of employees, shutting out the lines of communication to the other employees, and failing to engage in even basic monitoring of the business. Setting up and running a business in China (or anywhere overseas for that matter) completely remotely is a classic path to problems.
It was also wrong for the German owner to allow his libido to get involved in his business. We have a client in a very much male dominated industry who sends only his female employees to China because, as he puts it, he “doesn’t trust his male employees not to go on three day benders with females and do really stupid things.”
Anyway, the moral of the FT.com story is really rather basic. If you mismanage your business in China (or anywhere else) you will probably end up with some pretty newsworthy problems.
China business-heads, pay attention!
How To Legally Establish Your Business In China
A lot, a LOT, of entrepreneurs and businesses are looking to establish a company in China. Most of these people can’t read Chinese and haven’t a clue on how to navigate China’s ever-daunting laws, regulations, and bureaucracy. If there is anything lawyers are supposed to do, it’s for them to figure all of this out for you and hold your hand through it (at least in their area of expertise or specialization). This is one reason why China Law Blog is such a gem of a resource for anyone interested in doing business in (or with) China.
If you’ve done any cursory research into starting a company in China, you’ve probably already run across terms like joint-ventures (JVs), representative officers (ROs), or wholly foreign-owned foreign enterprises (WFOEs). If you haven’t, Dan of China Law Blog has compiled an excellent semi-table-of-contents guide to English information on these terms and other things to consider when establishing or expanding a business in China. An excerpt:
A WFOE will be its own free standing Chinese company, able to do just about everything a domestic Chinese company can do. We can set this company up to be 100% owned by your existing company, or we can form a new US (or Hong Kong company) to own it. Here are some articles we have written regarding the forming of a WFOE:
- The basics of forming a WFOE in China.
- An article explaining one of many reasons why it is critical to form a China WFOE correctly.
- Another article on China WFOE basics.
- A two part series laying out what it takes to form a WFOE in China and explaining China’s minimum capital requirements.
In general, to add a bit of my own experience into the mix, forming a company in China is not nearly as easy as it is in Hong Kong, but then a Hong Kong company is NOT a substitute for a proper Chinese company. As always, seek your legal advice from those legally qualified to give it. Head on over to China Law Blog to read the entire post »
Reflections Of The Rising Middle Class
In China, famous Chinese blogger Wang Jianshuo is definitely not poor. Why? He has a car. However, Wang Jianshuo is not rich either. Why? Just look at his car (yes, I’m just teasing him, he’s a down to earth kind of guy). Of course, as he himself states “rich is a relative term”, he is certainly richer than many but likewise also poorer than many (read: evil government officials). I happen to think of Wang Jianshuo as part of the rising middle (upper-middle?) class in China, wherever that may be in China’s distorted distribution of wealth “curve”. His latest post, “I am a Rich Person?” is deeply introspective and muses about how he grapples with what kind of expectations he should have of other people in Chinese society:
I started to yield at drivers who don’t yield to people on pedestrian when they do right turn. I started to educate service people behind the window of banks to show respects to their clients. I even started to educate people in the government that they should pay respect to citizens, and don’t yell to them, because they are not their slaves; I was even naive enough to mention to them that it is the tax payers money that supported their job (I was surely laughed at loudly). Anyway, there are so many situations that I feel I am right, and people are doing something wrong.
Until one day, Wendy said this to me: “Jian Shuo, how can you be so mean to them?”
In the end, Wang Jianshuo seems to arrive at a newly rebalanced but relativist perspective on human interaction, which might be a bit jarring for those of us who cling to fairly set and seemingly objective expectations for how anyone should behave or relate to others. Regardless, there’s a ton to think about that is very personally relevant to all of us in Wang Jianshuo’s post, so I strongly recommend venturing over to read it »
I think the first commenter at Shanghaiist has it about right, albeit slightly harsh:
“Leave it to an academic to take all the fun out of it…never was so little said with so much, I had to resort to reading it backwards in order to actually keep myself interested…would like to see an investigation by the same author in to why America is such a “humorless” foil for the Chinese ego…”
Haiyan Lee leaves the impression of a strained objectivity. My own take is that, whatever her citizenship, she was a touch miffed about China being the butt of the joke. Intellect rarely disguises base loyalties.