【英语财经】在中国做生意须“入乡随俗” How to do business without western rules

What do you do when your board fires your company’s chief executive, only to find he or she will not give up the helm? In the west, you call a lawyer and confidently await vindication in court. In China, you must learn to wield subtler forms of influence.

Consider the case of Sorbic International, a food additives group listed in London and based in Linyi City in Shandong. The board voted in April to replace the chief executive — but giving effect to this decision proved harder than it seemed. In China, controlling a business means having physical possession of the company’s “chops”, a type of seal that has been used for centuries to give effect to official documents. Employee or not, Sorbic’s sacked chief executive still had the chops. And that meant he was still in charge of the company’s operations — and its bank accounts, out of which millions are said by the board to have been transferred.

The two sides disagree about the facts; the executive says he is owed back pay, had been promised a majority interest in the business and is still operating the company. Regardless, there is no point in the board complaining that its predicament over the chops is unfair; no one doing business in China is in any position to insist on western rules. But that does not make the position hopeless, or the idea of investing in China unwise.

China has systems for resolving disagreements that are reliable and predictable. They are merely different from the ones most westerners are used to.

The key, when confronted with a recalcitrant Chinese counterparty, is to understand who can influence him or her, and what these potential influencers care about. In Sorbic’s case, the key person turned out to be Guo Shuqing, Shandong’s high-flying governor. One of the first Chinese nationals to graduate from Oxford university, Mr Guo is sophisticated, savvy and fluent in English. He is also well versed in western finance, having been chairman of the Chinese banking and securities regulators. And he is fully aware of the state visit President Xi Jinping plans to make to Britain in October.

By lobbying through diplomatic channels, the Sorbic board (to which I am an adviser) appealed on macroeconomic grounds. Their loss, they explained, would affect the flow of foreign capital into Shandong. The Chinese counterparty has quietly agreed to negotiate. If the two sides were slugging it out in court, they would not be talking to each other. It is not just in resolving disputes that westerners need to adjust their assumptions if they are to understand China well enough to profit from doing business there. Billions have been spent on projects such as the high speed railway that flashes at 308kph over the northern plains — wasted, you might say, if you insist on measuring decisions by their internal rate of return.

But what is happening in China today has little to do with such financial calculations and everything to do with social stability. For 2,000 years China has been caught in a dynastic rhythm that oscillates between stability and chaos. Each tiny nerve ending of the Chinese government is attuned to signs of strife; its sole objective is social cohesion. This model has survived for millennia.

The Chinese people are involved in the great historical task of jian-guo, or building up the nation after a century of chaos. Keep this in mind, and much that would be incomprehensible becomes clear and predictable. All societies indulge in social spending and, in that light, a railway in China is intellectually no different from a Massachusetts highway or an NHS hospital in Rotherham.

Many westerners believe that the values by which they live represent a unique contribution to human dignity. All the same, those values are not universally shared. Civilisations have often tried to conquer those they did not understand. This time, we must find the words, wisdom and compassion to influence, rather than coerce.

The writer is author of ‘Mr China’ and leads an effort to promote the study of Chinese civilisation in British schools

如果你的董事会解雇了公司首席执行官，却发现他或她不愿放弃手中的权柄，你会采取什么行动？在西方，你会打电话给律师，并满怀信心地等待法庭辩护。而在中国，你必须学会运用一些更加微妙的影响力。

看一看益康国际(Sorbic International)的例子，这是一家位于山东省临沂市、在伦敦上市的食品添加剂公司。该公司董事会4月份投票决定替换首席执行官——但事实证明执行这个决定比看上去更难。在中国，掌控一家公司意味着实际拥有这家公司的“印章”。数个世纪以来，人们都使用这种印章让官方文件生效。不管这名遭解雇的首席执行官还是不是这家公司的员工，他依然拥有这些印章。这意味着他依然掌握公司的运营和银行账户，董事会称有数百万英镑从这个账户转出。

双方对于事实说法不一；首席执行官表示公司还拖欠他薪水，他曾被许诺将得到公司多数股权，而且他依然在运营公司。无论如何，董事会抱怨其在印章方面遭遇困境的不公是没有意义的；没有哪个在中国从事商业活动的人能够坚持西方规则。但这并不意味着这种处境是无望的，也不是说在中国投资是个不明智的想法。

中国拥有可信和可预测的分歧解决机制，只是这些机制和大多数西方人习惯的那些不同。

面对顽强对抗的中方对手，关键是要了解谁能影响他或者她，这些潜在的影响者又在意什么。在益康国际的案例里，结果发现关键人物是雄心勃勃的山东省省长郭树清。作为较早赴牛津大学(Oxford university)学习的中国人，郭树清是个老练、睿智的人，说一口流利的英语。他同时还精通西方金融学，曾任中国证监会主席。他还非常清楚习近平将在10月份对英国进行国事访问。

益康国际的董事会（我是该董事会的顾问）以宏观经济为理由提出了诉求，通过外交渠道进行游说。他们解释称，他们的损失会影响流入山东省的外国资本。中方已低调同意协商。如果双方要在法庭上分胜负，他们就不会和另一方对话了。如果西方人想要足够了解中国，以在中国从商盈利的话，他们就需要调整他们的假设，并且不仅仅是在解决争端方面。如果你坚持用内部收益率来衡量决策的话，你可能会说，中国在一些项目上花费的数十亿元人民币是浪费，比如以每小时308公里的速度在中国北部平原飞驰的高速铁路。

但是，如今中国正在发生的一切与此类财务计算几乎没有关系，而是全关乎于社会稳定。中国曾有两千年处于王朝统治下，一直在稳定和动荡之间摇摆。中国政府每一个微小的神经末梢都紧盯着冲突的迹象；它唯一的目标就是社会团结。这种模式历经千年而留存下来。

中国人正处于“民族复兴”的伟大历史任务之中，也就是在经历了一个世纪的混乱后重新振兴这个国家。记住这一点，很多令人费解的事情就会变得清晰而可预测。所有的社会都沉溺于社会支出，从这个角度来看，中国修建一条铁路在认知层面上无异于麻省的一条公路或者罗瑟勒姆一家属于英国国民卫生服务体系(NHS)的医院。

很多西方人认为，他们所信仰的价值观代表着对人类尊严的一种独特贡献。尽管如此，这些价值观并非普遍共有的。文明常常试图征服那些它所不理解的人。但现在，我们必须以语言、智慧和同情去影响别人，而非胁迫。

本文作者为《中国通》(Mr China)的作者，并领导一项推动英国学校研究中国文明的努力

译者/何黎