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Legacies, A Chinese Mosaic
The secret to China, is power not money
In the rush to exploit China's economic opportunity, many foreign investors have been rudely shocked by this enigmatic giant. Past agreements involving large sums of money are being broken for political or economic expediency.
The front page of the Friday 2 December 1994 Wall Street Journal records a number of such broken agreements and worthless investments. Overseas investors wring their hands and ask why. Most are ignorant of the history, language or culture of this most populous nation on earth.
A book that provides insight into this inscrutable nation is Legacies, A Chinese Mosaic, by Chinese American novelist Bette Bao Lord. Published in 1990, the book was on the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks.
Ms. Lord was wife of retired U.S. Ambassador to China Winston Lord, who serve during the 1970s when Nixon engaged China, and in the 1980s, during Tiananmen Square. She tells the stories of her relatives and their friends. These stories are of Chinese brutalized by the capricious political winds blowing through China since World War II.
China in the Mid 1800s was a colonial conquest of Western Imperalism, forced into concessions after loosing the Opium War, it learns the true meaning of raw, ruthless power.
In its own struggle as a modern nation in the 1900s, China applied those lessons. First Chiang Kai-Shek, the heir to China's great Parliamentarian Sun Yat-Sen, turned on his once ally Mao Zedong in a bloody coup to eliminate the Communist Party.
Mao retreated only to reemerge and repay the bloody debt, ultimately prevailing as the supreme leader of Mainland China. Mao's rein taught the Chinese ambivalence, says Ms. Lord.
"In 1956, Mao announced the campaign to 'Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend,' during which the educated were urged to speak their minds, to state the mistakes of the party, to suggest ways that its work might be improved," Ms. Lord explains.
A year later, Mao instituted an anti-rightest movement that imprisoned many of those who spoke out. In 1966, Mao exhorted the Red Guards to attach the Communist establishment.
Leadership changes among those surrounding Mao describes the ambivalence of the regime as well. In 1967 Deng Xiaoping, China's now paramount leader, was purged. In 1973, he reemerged as vice premier. In 1976, Mao purged him again.
In 1977, he resumed office and became China's ultimate ruler in 1978. In that year, he began the economic reforms that exists today and normalized relations with the U.S. the following year.
What remained of Mao, however, is a legacy of institutionalized corruption and a tenuous stability reliant on a smooth transition of power upon the death of Deng Xiaoping.
Considering the instability of this nation, why do business there at all. Because China is a nation with an 11.5% gross domestic product this year compared to just over 3% for the U.S. It has an electronics industry worth $22.5 billion that is growing at an annual rate of 20% a year for the next five years. In short, it is too big to be ignored.
To do business in China requires the right partner. Throughout its recent history, one stable force has been its military. Outside companies with joint ventures in which the military had a major stake were assured that government bureaucrats or party leaders did not arbitrarily change an agreement. In China, the secret to doing business is not money, it's power.
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