“We work for no government. We just want to build businesses.”
That may be their sentiment, but not their reality. The CCP has their fingers, or more, in all Chinese companies of any consequence. I’ve seen it first hand too many times.
I think that a more fair characterization of the situation is that the Chinese legal system and institutions in general do not give people a lot of confidence that government interference would not happen.
Note how this is different from tons of positive evidence showing that this has already happened. So one can see why, from these companies’ perspective, or maybe even Chinese government’s, this can be seen as very unfair.
Rita, it might be worth pivoting your focus to how companies navigate increasing geopolitical tensions and the potential fragmentation of world trade and technology. This would be a fascinating and relevant topic, now and in the future. The old model of Chinese companies leveraging their advantages to go global no longer works due to these tensions, so I think your focus should change as well
Thank you, LC. It's definitely something I'm keen to explore further. :) Do you think it's something the English-speaking world would want to read about as well? That knowledge seems more relevant to the companies in practice
Thank you very much for this great article. I'm very impressed by how fear has changed the perception of Americans.
How about switching perspective and write about what consequences the current Western fear/paranoia has for businesses and different industries? Surely, there are many missed opportunities or longterm damages caused by willfully passing on business with any entity that has ties to the second largest economy in the world
I would say this trend began even before 2019, in some industries. I started working in e-commerce companies in Shenzhen in 2013/14, and even then, they wanted their brands and marketing to distance themselves from China as much as possible.
Nowadays, I see this particularly in the Web3 environment, where I'm still intermittently involved still in Shenzhen. Also because of national regulations, but mostly due to external perception, a lot of Web3 projects operated in china go to great lengths to hide their Chinese origin, even if behind the scenes they're highly resistent to work methods that are not very typically Chinese, which ultimately translates into output that's very obviously Chinese.
“We work for no government. We just want to build businesses.”
That may be their sentiment, but not their reality. The CCP has their fingers, or more, in all Chinese companies of any consequence. I’ve seen it first hand too many times.
I think that a more fair characterization of the situation is that the Chinese legal system and institutions in general do not give people a lot of confidence that government interference would not happen.
Note how this is different from tons of positive evidence showing that this has already happened. So one can see why, from these companies’ perspective, or maybe even Chinese government’s, this can be seen as very unfair.
Rita, it might be worth pivoting your focus to how companies navigate increasing geopolitical tensions and the potential fragmentation of world trade and technology. This would be a fascinating and relevant topic, now and in the future. The old model of Chinese companies leveraging their advantages to go global no longer works due to these tensions, so I think your focus should change as well
Thank you, LC. It's definitely something I'm keen to explore further. :) Do you think it's something the English-speaking world would want to read about as well? That knowledge seems more relevant to the companies in practice
Thank you very much for this great article. I'm very impressed by how fear has changed the perception of Americans.
How about switching perspective and write about what consequences the current Western fear/paranoia has for businesses and different industries? Surely, there are many missed opportunities or longterm damages caused by willfully passing on business with any entity that has ties to the second largest economy in the world
Maybe there’s a reason why no one trusts China.
I would say this trend began even before 2019, in some industries. I started working in e-commerce companies in Shenzhen in 2013/14, and even then, they wanted their brands and marketing to distance themselves from China as much as possible.
Nowadays, I see this particularly in the Web3 environment, where I'm still intermittently involved still in Shenzhen. Also because of national regulations, but mostly due to external perception, a lot of Web3 projects operated in china go to great lengths to hide their Chinese origin, even if behind the scenes they're highly resistent to work methods that are not very typically Chinese, which ultimately translates into output that's very obviously Chinese.
I could go on and on on this.
Great article and insights !
Lovely and thrutfull read as always. It will become even bigger problem in years to come and AI geopolitical battle starting on...