If it doesn't draw blood, its accepted business practice in China. If it does draw blood, it might be accepted business practice. Seriously, I've never seen a place where cheating was so accepted: just about every other taxi ride attempted to take me the "scenic route", almost every business deal ended up with them trying to screw or defraud us. What a nightmare of a place to do business in - never again.
Out of curiosity, how were you finding business partners?
There are plenty of upstanding businesses (as well as terrible ones) but most markets are fairly opaque; as a Taiwanese person myself I've found most success working with a local partner to manage resources.
Oh, too bad. :-( Given the headline, I was hoping for an article on how technically inclined people are not ridiculed as "geeks" or "nerds" in China, but are rather accepted as contributors to key aspects of life in the 21st century. Instead, they're still using "hacking" and "cracking" interchangeably in the New York Times. Apparently we're not as "21 century" as I thought.
Being "technically inclined" doesn't make you a hacker either. The news may misuse the term, but so does this entire community. "Hacking" does not mean "doing a software job well".
I'm probably slightly biased here, having quite a few good friends that themselves are very involved with the manufacturing scene in China. From what I know and have seen, the apparently widespread cheating you mentioned is much rarer than you say. In many areas there is serious friction between (corrupt) government and business, and it is mostly under such situations where I've known about "non-standard business pra…
> I don't think it's really racism per se, as I think amongst many Chinese, especially the less well-educated, they believe that for reasons of history, foreigners, [...] owe them something Technically, that is racism. Blaming similar looking people. Less insidious than other forms maybe...
Don't think so. Technically speaking racism is strictly prejudice based on racial, biological theories. This is prejudice based on history. Imperial Japan was part of the 8 Nation alliance, defeated China in the Sino-Japanese Wars, in WWII, etc. It's just easier to figure out if you're a white businessman than a Japanese businessman. Looks are a part of it, but their reasoning is all historical. Unlike say, segregation in the 60s USA -- black < white simply because they're black. So, maybe it's sort of like racism, but if you want to be technical, it's some other kind of prejudice. I'd say xenophobia is a better term.
I know you think Africa is still largely a charity case but everyone else knows that its the next big growth market that will be easily plundered due to weak political systems and fragmentation.
Week political systems make it much risker to do business in Africa. Stupid people look at Africa as a growth opertunity's but few westerners got rich in Russa after the cold war. Weak government actually makes political connections more important just look at China.
Actually look to china for the model for exploitation in Africa arrangements established at the state for exploitation. You need political connections no doubt but Africa is no sob story at all. Its undiscovered gold.