Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Talking about doing business in China
150 in-depth interviews of CEOs, Communications Directors, corporate board members and other top officials at major companies throughout the US was conducted.
The following question was asked: What do you believe are the key advantages for a company to conduct business in China?
What are the key factors that interfere with your doing business in China? (More than one answer was possible)
6. Corruption (15%) – maybe they meant the US on this one.
5. Inadequate legal system (18%) – a lack of lawyers might actually be a good thing.
4. Underdeveloped financial infrastructure – 18% – have to keep track of where the money goes
3. Language barrier (19%)- shuo shenme?
2. Cultural issues (21%) – can’t eat frog intestines
1. Bureaucratic interference (32%) – not patient enough, don’t want to pay the bribe, don’t know which of 20 different offices to begin at.
If it were easy to do business in China, anyone would do it. Anything worthwhile is generally difficult to do.
Try telling any of the above reasons to an IBM, Google or Toyota.
I can think of one very good reason to go to China to do business. Because it can be done.
What do you think?
These survey results were taken from a poll conducted by the Committee of 100.
The Committee of 100 is a national, nonpartisan organization composed of prominent American citizens of Chinese descent. The members of this group pool their resources to address important issues that concern the Chinese/American community but, imho, more importantly foster better US-Greater China relations.
Recently, this group tasked the polling firm ZOGBY to conduct an extensive survey of American Attitudes Toward China.
They polled the General Population (General Public) as well as Chinese Americans. Business leaders, Opinion leaders and Congressional staffers, subsets of the general public were also polled.
In keeping with the Committee of 100 ideals I hope it will create discussion and be used to better understand U.S.-China relations and help those concerned to formulate recommendations on how to improve relationships between these two great countries.
Interesting findings, but have sparked more questions —
1) Is bureaucratic interference tied to corruption? Do wealthy-looking foreign businesses get more visits from officials? Are their fees “negotiable”?
2) Is bureaucratic interference made worse by the constantly changing rules and the uneven implementation? I talk to biz owners and lawyers who are always saying, “the regulation is X, but in reality we have to do Y”
3) Does more business => more corruption and/or bureaucracy?
Interesting post.
It would be interesting to review the actual questions asked. This short list reflects the stereotypical reasons Americans are reticent to enter any foreign market, not specifically China.