China Dispatch: Honing my negotiating skills and some closing thoughts
Posted on October 30, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Our final city visit on this trip was to Hong Kong, which is beautifully situated on the coast and is very modern. The 10-year-old state-of-the-art airport sits on a man-made island about 30 minutes from downtown. Given its history of being longtime British colony, it is the most westernized Chinese city that we visited.
We arrived in the early evening — with enough time to get fitted for a suit that cost a quarter of the U.S. price — then headed over to Hong Kong Island to do some last-minute shopping in the street market. What a sight to see: thousands of people walking shoulder to shoulder down shop-lined streets buying everything from knock-off Rolexes to rubber chickens, all trying to negotiate the best deal they could. After being taken a few times, I became the hardest negotiator in the street — at least in my own mind.
I had to depart early the next day while the group had a last day of meetings. I feel very privileged to have been invited to travel to China with a first-class Tennessee delegation. I enjoyed getting to know the governor, the commissioners, their hard-working staff and, most of all, the Tennessee business leaders who all share a common interest in growing ties with China. I met many people, both American and Chinese, with whom I plan to explore opportunities.
China was different than I had anticipated. I had envisioned more of a third-world infrastructure that only had an upper and lower class, all ruled by the fist of Communism. Instead, I found a very robust ‘capitalist-like’ society backed by a government in pursuit of world power.
The country’s leaders have the strong taste for wealth and are making monumental strides in buying up the world’s natural resources and learning (some would call it stealing) everything they can to improve their citizens’ lives. Although, like us right now, I’m not sure they’ve figured out how to pay for it.
The Chinese have a rich history dating back thousands of years, during which they have seen just about everything. While they do have a judicial system, they seem to still turn a blind eye to human rights, the protection of intellectual property and true freedom of speech. I was warned to watch what I blogged, as they do monitor ‘reporter-like’ information. (For more on that, check out hotel Internet use disclaimer.) I didn’t want Bill Clinton to have to come fetch me.
The few businesspeople I spoke with who are doing business in China said that, while their costs are still very low, they are still only comfortable with transaction-based investments, i.e. outsourcing portions of their production to Chinese companies instead of fully investing in facilities there. Their fear is that their product patents will be stolen and their real estate taken.
It’s still a bit of the Wild West there. But then again, on the clock of Chinese’s long history, so was the U.S. only a few minutes ago.
