Conducting business in China---culture impact

What are the main factors that accomplish a successful business? As well known, the company should have a market strategy and a surefire analyzes. Regardless of general views, what else relevant within a succeed business? The answer is “hidden rules” that needs to be observed from cultural aspects.

Since two thousands years ago, Confucianism became a ruler in lives to measure people’s behavior. It emphasis people’s obligation towards one another is based upon the relationship. People have roles as husbands, wives, parents, children, brothers or sister. No matter which roles we are in, we have our duty. Confucianism stresses duty, sincerity, loyalty, honor, respect for age and seniority. During business, senior have the right to speak first. Try to understand the culture is the first step to go into business.

There is no denying, non-verbal communication is a vital form of communication that reveal people’s real feeling. When we interact with others, we continuously give and receive countless wordless signals. By way of a personal illustration, I have never heard my parents say, "I love you" to me, not even once, although I know without a doubt that the love is there. I know it by the feelings and how they act. In China, actual words simply don’t mean as much as they do. Furthermore, there is an interesting thing as a part of culture is “face saving”, roughly translated as good reputation or respect. This is when one's actions or deeds have been exposed to people; the partner should provide an alternative that can avoid feeling insulted or disrespect.

By knowing the culture, the business can be started at a higher point. This is the time to negotiate with government. America companies often sign an agreement with promises from local officials that the central government can not enforce their rules into the states. On the contrary, the Chinese central government regulations can apply on each local place, which cause the process more complex. U.S. Department of Commerce. For instance, Americans more likely use direct way to do business, which is give more consideration on whether the business can bring more benefits, not the private friendship between businessman. However, business is not going well this way in China. The policy is driven by politics. It’s a unique thing of socialism. 

Charity in China

      Charity itself is a good thing. But under the distortion of some unscrupulous people, who use charity for personal gain, make the charity events become just another money-tree.

      China’s charity agencies are always calm when the situation goes out of control, because the government agencies are not afraid of anything. They know that they have the last line of defense, which is the government has the power to silent public opinions. I have to admit that citizens enjoy greater freedom of speech than years before, but if the government makes mistakes, people cannot say anything; the violator will be punished by some virtual charges. When the charities are involved in the unethical problems, the government will make the charity look better, and silence the people who contradict the government.

     A well-known charitable organization used their power to eliminate the public opinion in 2002. The Southern Weekend magazine exposed the “Project for Hope” charity (a charity that helps all poor kids) as being responsible for misappropriation of one hundred million Yuan (158 million dollars), an investment that eventually to loss. These donations were enough to support millions of kids. Hundreds of thousands of this article copies from the magazine were recovered and destroyed because the effect of the article. There is only thousands of remaining article copies did not be destroyed in the world. Furthermore, the journalist who wrote this article was punished and the person who provided clues to the journalist suddenly died of cancer in 2006. It is obvious which party did the trick. The audit report has not been made public since then.

      The “Project for Hope” charity has another scandal. A small private company in Shanghai contributed to 17 students through the Hope charity; the company received grateful letters from all students. After the results have been confirmed, only three students received money and the rest were fabrications. Later on, the Southern Weekend reporter went to do the reporting discovered some of the students actually were deprived of education. One of the students, who did not receive the donation, has a paralytic mother. People with disabilities can be exempt from agricultural tax, and the student’s mother definitely needed to save the money from tax in order to afford her kid back to school. Things did not turn out good. She could not even afford the 50 Yuan (8 dollars) to get a disability certification. So, she climbed by her arms to the entrance of the local government to beg them for the disability card. The official claimed, “If you do not have a disability card, then you are not disabled. I trust the certificate, not what I’ve seen.” I question, where is the conscience? After this news was exposed, the rest of the 14 students received the charity, but the date has been altered. Once people can heard the reality, and action occurred to response; the country is progressing in the freedom of speech.

      Although people believe the official charitable organization should take the responsibility of the fake letter incident, but the essence of the problem came out from the Board of Education, another department of the government. There is no doubt that is the systemic problem. If such charity organizations like the Hope Project, or Red Cross (in China) is notorious, why doesn’t the government allow unofficial charitable institutions like NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to take over the job? I do not think it is because the government worries about the managing issue, because the NGOs cannot be more chaotic than the government. Rather, because the official agencies knew they have done badly, they understand the birth of many NGOs can quickly establish credibility, attracting a large number of young people to work for them, get more funds and members to support them, and eventually access people. In time, NGOs would pose a threat to the regime. The NGOs and government will be compared by citizens; this makes the government uncomfortable, like an ugly movie star never wanting to stand beside Angelina Jolie. So, the official charities hold media, financing, and justice firmly in control. This is the so-called problem of the Chinese charities.

      The Red Cross is not that lucky, because it does not have a solid background as Hope Project. For example, searching the Red Cross online in China, both positive and negative news about it showed up. If we search for Hope Project foundation, soon there will be “According to relevant laws and regulations, the contents cannot be displayed.” The government does not want any negative media about this agency, so people know nothing bad about it. The hope project turned out to be a hopeless project. I did research on Google for the scandals. Unfortunately, many are shielded. Now, I realized the reason Google exited the Chinese market.

      After the scandal emerged, the leader of the Red Cross held a press conference and said a bunch of nonsense. But, at least the Red Cross faced the media. And the journalist who publishes the negative news was not punished. On the other side, the Hope Project did not face the scandal of their own response to any media. What they have done were directly blocked the media, destroyed papers, and punished the reporter. The Red Cross stated that they would open the query system immediately that allows donors to know distribution of every placed donation. However, the Hope Project cannot be audited.  When I look at this high-handed and mysterious charity agency, I have every reason to speculate it with worst ideas. I think the financial part of the Hope Project should be independent from the government, so that the financial can be public.

      As students in China, we were asked to donate to Hope Project year after year. If I am asked again, I will ask the person, if Americans’ Twitter search for a charity agency and the result is “cannot find any information,” would they donate? There is no reason for a person to donate to a charity that is reluctant to publish the audit report and oppress the media. No matter whom the charity is, and what kind of success the agency achieved.

      The government collecting people’s contribution to do good things is reasonable. But now, hundreds of billions a year of public funds are being used to please administrators, and some unheard countries, while China still has three million children out of school and countless number of people in poverty. It is only one billion a year to undertake their education. Suppose, there are no primary schools in China; the government needs to build five hundred thousand in order to have one primary school in every village. The total expenditure is only a quarter of all administrative staff spending. Thus, I think no reason for Hope Project to “steal” money from people, because the government has already given them enough. Education is important part of financial expenditure for a country.

      Today, the government has sufficient abilities and obligations to take basic education into account. All citizens do not need to pay for apparent contributions. Here is a fact, the Chinese education expenditure is between 2 to 3 percent of GDP, and the American education expenditure is 5.3 percent of its GDP. If the Chinese government had the same ratio of the other countries in spending of education on GDP, the problem will be solved.

     All these are facts, but do not mean that we are no longer in need of charity, if the problem remains, people are willing to put effort at times. The more we do, the better the world will be.