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Chinese Rules: Five Timeless Lessons for Succeeding in China
Tim Clissold
From the author of the acclaimed ‘Mr. China’ comes another rollicking adventure story – part memoir, part history, part business imbroglio – that offers valuable lessons to help Westerners win in China.In the twenty-first century, the world has tilted eastwards in its orbit; China grows confident while the West seems mired in doubt. Having lived and worked in China for more than two decades, Tim Clissold explains the secrets that Westerners can use to navigate through its cultural and political maze.Picking up where he left off in the international bestseller ‘Mr. China’, ‘Chinese Rules’ chronicles his most recent exploits, with assorted Chinese bureaucrats, factory owners, and local characters building a climate change business in China. Of course, all does not go as planned as he finds himself caught between the world’s largest carbon emitter and the world’s richest man. Clissold offers entertaining and enlightening anecdotes of the absurdities, gaffes, and mysteries he encountered along the way.Sprinkled amid surreal scenes of cultural confusion and near misses are smart myth-busting insights and practical lessons Westerns can use to succeed in China. Exploring key episodes in that nation’s long political, military, and cultural history, Clissold outlines five Chinese rules, which anyone can deploy in on-the-ground situations with modern Chinese counterparts. These Chinese rules will enable foreigners not only to co-operate with China but also to compete with it on its own terms.
CHINESE RULES
Five Timeless Lessons for Succeeding in China
Tim Clissold
Copyright (#ulink_7657c52d-2767-5bda-9f63-635a6d8aee0e)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://WilliamCollinsBooks.com)
This eBook edition first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014
Copyright © Tim Clissold 2014
Cover images © Shutterstock
Tim Clissold asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007590285
Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007590261
Version: 2016-03-02
Praise for Mr China (#ulink_37f013d8-0455-5f9e-8a32-f53efa786dcd)
‘An instant classic’ Time
‘A wonderful read … one might not expect such poetry from a banker’ New York Times
‘It’s got big money, charismatic capitalists, Communist apparatchiks, crime and mysterious disappearances … [but] it’s not just a novel – it’s true’ Telegraph
‘No business history can ever have been such an enjoyable read … any visiting businessman should be obliged to buy a copy’ Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong
Dedication (#ulink_5e7cda12-9df0-5487-91da-0381fd887187)
‘harmony’
for Lorraine,
for my brothers Oliver and Max,
and for the memory of Lizzie Hicks
To fight and win a hundred battles is not supreme excellence; the greatest General avoids war and overcomes his adversary without fighting.
THIRD SECTION, SUN TZU’S THE ART OF WAR, c. SIXTH CENTURY BC
CONTENTS
Cover (#uc0d9324c-8ee0-5b14-a6fe-659d1748ae9f)
Title Page (#uefc8571b-9bd1-51af-ac1b-aaf2142cb159)
Copyright (#u60ac613b-b917-5f69-b2e9-90ee86b9db2d)
Praise for Mr China (#u8208f800-dbff-525a-9753-a7a019350afe)
Dedication (#ub5a2a2d2-79d1-5bab-8021-d90c060873f0)
A Chinese Chop (#u3ccfcfda-c59a-52fa-8705-27b35f8c03f9)
1. Even a Beast Like a Thousand-Pound Ox Must Lower Its Head to Drink (#ueecf6c24-dbba-503a-a512-21863220f358)
2. A Tree May Grow to a Thousand Feet, but the Leaves Still Return to Their Roots (#ub6da28db-81e5-58c5-9bad-34596fbeef0b)
3. When the Horse Has Reached the Edge of the Cliff, It’s Too Late to Draw on the Reins (#ua2291966-96a7-5253-ad25-918a0d58a1c0)
4. Up in the Sky There Is Paradise, but Down on the Earth We Have Hangzhou (#uc6d5ff78-f1a2-5d37-ad18-af0eb36f6044)
5. The First Chinese Rule: How Can We Go So Far as to Change the Regulations of the Celestial Empire – Which are Over a Hundred Years Old – at the Request of One Man – of You, O King!? (#uec788bc9-d999-5273-8228-7b50db881050)
6. Sacrifice the Plum Tree in Order to Save the Peach (#u6d9ed571-2157-5059-bc20-43627f963b72)
7. The Second Chinese Rule: The Long-Divided Shall Unite; The Long-United Shall Divide (#u646f030f-9f9a-5fb9-9df9-aa4206ae7db7)
8. Learn from the Past; Seek Truth from Facts (#ud2fca626-cffa-5d42-843f-e63b8cbc2e3a)
9. The Flowers on a Liverwort May be as Small as a Grain of Rice, but They Still Want to Blossom Like a Peony (#u36bd5de5-97ce-503a-9484-f6a40844eda4)
10. The Third Chinese Rule: The Art of War Is of Vital Importance for the State; It Is a Matter of Life and Death; the Road to Safety or Ruin That Should on No Account Be Neglected (#ub11bd8ba-a5ef-5bac-8a9e-5578192e90d6)
11. When Master Jiang Hangs Out His Hook, It’s the Willing Fish That Gets Caught (#u2ecf2ff0-4846-5fc7-8748-1d531849dc0a)
12. Kill with Borrowed Knife (#ue0470009-840d-5119-b364-cb3942513af3)
13. The Fourth Chinese Rule: Cross the River by Feeling for the Stones (#u6294b9bf-c7a6-5e05-9f6b-4fc5717bbc9e)
14. Who Could Say It Was Gain or Loss, When the Old Man Lost His Horse? (#u2ccc4d76-ac31-5484-b7d6-5f4f0bed825c)
15. The Fifth and Final Rule: Know Yourself and Know the Other and You’ll Survive a Hundred Battles (#u27fca729-aae2-5f65-a399-4024434ecdc3)
Footnote (#ufa30e1fa-b473-536a-bc72-7f9b0decc696)
Bibliography (#u2da24b27-def7-5b46-819f-7ea60edb5b5b)
Author’s Note (#ue22764f9-ae24-5e80-aa13-090016d5a1bc)
About the Author (#uc8f27290-3cbc-5ff4-a753-025643d660fe)
Also by Tim Clissold (#u627c20a6-ed3d-5ba6-9a08-373c8dace990)
About the Publisher (#u9663dfd0-24d6-5c06-8230-63cc4466e020)
A Chinese Chop (#ulink_6c5fc518-d143-5439-99d7-7c0ef1063a9c)
1 (#ulink_0b7868db-1878-558a-932f-28466ead6804)
EVEN A BEAST LIKE A THOUSAND-POUND OX MUST LOWER ITS HEAD TO DRINK (#ulink_0b7868db-1878-558a-932f-28466ead6804)
Traditional peasant saying: Even the most capable must sometimes ask for help.
I almost didn’t answer the call. I had been gazing absentmindedly out at the hills and the purple splash of heather as the train sped south towards York. But the carriage was almost empty so I took out the phone and clicked on the button. A voice confirmed my name and asked abruptly if I could go to China. Glancing around me, I whispered, ‘I can’t really take a call right now. I’m in the quiet coach, you see.’
‘Well, you’d better call me back right away. Didn’t you get my messages?’ said the voice with a snort. And then the line cut out.
London was still a couple of hours away, so I waited a while as the stone towers on the Minster receded into the distance. The landscape levelled out around York and, farther south, a network of canals stretched out in straight lines towards the horizon; lock gates and brick guardhouses passed by the window. Along the old toll paths, the willows tossed about in the wind, casting long, rolling shadows in the late summer sun. I wandered down to the end of the car and, leaning against the doorway, clicked on the number. The voice that answered immediately launched into a story.
‘Okay, so we’ve got this deal in China,’ she said, ‘and we need your help urgently. There’s this big factory in Zhejiang – you’ve been to Zhejiang of course but maybe not to Quzhou.’
‘Er, yeah, I think I’ve been to Quzhou.’
Another snort. ‘I doubt it, this must be a different Quzhou. It’s miles from anywhere, stuck right out in the middle of the outback, a couple of six-packs from Hangzhou.’
‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ I said, noticing an Australian accent.
‘Really?’ She paused for a moment, but quickly resumed the story. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘we signed up to buy truckloads of carbon from a chemical factory down there and now it looks like the whole thing’s gone belly-up. We found some lawyers in Beijing who said that you’d help us.’
‘Lawyers?’ I asked.
‘Haven’t they briefed you yet?’ asked the voice. ‘They promised they’d call you. Now the Chinese partner wants to change everything.’ The voice groaned, apparently addressing itself. ‘This is the biggest deal that’s ever been done by private investors,’ she said, shooting her attention back to me. ‘We’ve got fifteen million tons of carbon hanging by a thread, and now they want to change the whole deal!’
‘Carbon?’ I said, glancing sideways through the window and deciding it was time to end the call. ‘Look, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know anything about the chemical industry. You must have got the wrong lawyers.’
‘Not that type of carbon.’
‘Catalysts or something is it? Look, fifteen million tons of carbon sounds like a hell of a lot to be moving around in China.’
‘What?’
‘You got transport organized?’ I asked. ‘The railways can be a nightmare,’ I said. ‘You know they’ve still got steam engines running out there?’
‘Not that kind of carbon!’ said the voice again, shifting markedly upward in pitch. ‘Credits! Not the black stuff!’ There was a sigh and a mumbled comment I didn’t quite catch above the clatter of the tracks.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right.’
‘Let’s just back up here for a minute,’ she said. ‘We have a deal to buy carbon credits from a chemical factory in Quzhou. They make stuff used in fridges and air conditioners, right?’
‘Oh, yeah? So where does the carbon come in then?’ I continued sceptically. This really wasn’t making much sense. The connection cut out and the carriage shook violently as the train roared through a tunnel. She called me back immediately.
‘Wait! The chemical plant is chucking out greenhouse gases big-time, so we’re helping them put in new equipment, incinerators that’ll burn up the gas. That way, we get credits that we can sell on in Europe. Buyers are desperate for this stuff!’
‘Uh-huh …,’ I said, concluding that I was dealing with a nut. ‘Look, I’m sure this is all really interesting, but I’m quite tied up at the moment. Perhaps you could—’
‘No, listen,’ she interrupted. ‘This is deadly serious.’
She went on to explain that the project was the largest greenhouse gas reduction project ever attempted by private investors. ‘We just have to make this work,’ she said. ‘If we get it right, it could kick-start the whole market.’ The Chinese factory had agreed to put in equipment that burns up gases from the production line, which they’d been venting out into the air. ‘It’s really bad stuff,’ she said, ‘millions of tons of gases just blowing up into the sky and all they have to do is put in incinerators to burn it up.’
‘So why don’t they just put them in anyway then?’ I asked.
‘There’s nowhere in China that makes the equipment; they have to import it from Japan and they don’t have the cash. So we agree to buy the credits, and the factory shows the contract to the bank to get loans to buy the equipment. That’s the whole point of the CDM, right?’
‘Er … maybe,’ I said vaguely.
‘CDM. It’s part of the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gases – Kyoto, right?’ she said doubtfully. ‘The factory puts in the equipment, burns up the gas, and the UN gives them carbon credits that we can sell on in Europe. Both sides make money, we cut down on greenhouse gases, and everybody’s happy.’
‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to me. You been doing this long, have you?’ I added suspiciously.
‘Well, yes actually,’ she said. ‘I did five years at the World Bank. We did deals all over the world … Indonesia, Nepal, India, China, Venezuela. Six months ago I moved to London and joined a carbon outfit here.’
The phone cut out again.
‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,’ I said once we were reconnected.
‘Yeah, I was just saying that I joined a carbon outfit in London but at first no one else here wanted to do this deal – can you imagine it? The biggest carbon deal on the planet and they got all nervy and started asking all sorts of questions.’ Another snort. ‘Anyway, I went right out on a limb and got the Chinese to sign up to sell us the carbon. When I took the letter back to London, man, they were crazy as a snake. There wasn’t enough money in the first fund so we went out and raised a syndicate. Wang’s just called from China and wants to change the deal. The syndicate is wobbling and it looks like the whole lot’s about to go down the chute. Anyway I don’t have time for all this. Cut to the point; when can you come out to China?’
‘Er …’
‘We need to get out there as quickly as possible. I’ve got a flight booked for this evening.’
‘This evening!? But I don’t even get into London till after five …’
‘The flight’s not till eight, so you’ve got plenty of time to get across town. The guys in Beijing said you’d help us …’
