Chinese Rules: Five Timeless Lessons for Succeeding in China
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.
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CHINESE RULES
Five Timeless Lessons for Succeeding in China
Tim Clissold
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
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
‘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
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
1. Even a Beast Like a Thousand-Pound Ox Must Lower Its Head to Drink
2. A Tree May Grow to a Thousand Feet, but the Leaves Still Return to Their Roots
3. When the Horse Has Reached the Edge of the Cliff, It’s Too Late to Draw on the Reins
4. Up in the Sky There Is Paradise, but Down on the Earth We Have Hangzhou
6. Sacrifice the Plum Tree in Order to Save the Peach
7. The Second Chinese Rule: The Long-Divided Shall Unite; The Long-United Shall Divide
8. Learn from the Past; Seek Truth from Facts
11. When Master Jiang Hangs Out His Hook, It’s the Willing Fish That Gets Caught
13. The Fourth Chinese Rule: Cross the River by Feeling for the Stones
14. Who Could Say It Was Gain or Loss, When the Old Man Lost His Horse?
15. The Fifth and Final Rule: Know Yourself and Know the Other and You’ll Survive a Hundred Battles
EVEN A BEAST LIKE A THOUSAND-POUND OX MUST LOWER ITS HEAD TO DRINK
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.’
