The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That "Win-Win" Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice describes former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) Ken Wilcox's firsthand challenges he encountered in four years “on the ground” trying to establish a joint venture between SVB and the Chinese government to fund local innovation design - and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) efforts to systematically sabotage the project and steal SVB's business model. This book provides actionable advice drawn from meticulous notes Wilcox took from interviews with people from all walks of Chinese life, including Party and non-Party members, the business elite, and domestic workers.
Describing a China he found fascinating and maddeningly complex, this book explores topics including: - Difficulties in transplanting SVB's model to China, from misunderstandings about titles and responsibilities to pitched battles over toilet design - Ethics and practices widely adopted by Chinese businesses today and why China must be met with realistic expectations - Wilcox's own honest missteps and the painfully learned lessons that came afterwards
Engrossing, enlightening, and entertaining, The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That "Win-Win" Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice is an essential cautionary tale and guidebook for all Western bankers, C-suite executives, consultants, and entrepreneurs seeking to do business within China.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
About the Author xv
Acronyms xvii
Introduction xix
Prologue: the Green Hat Award xxi
Why I Wrote This Book xxii
How I Structured This Account and Gathered My Information xxv
Part I The Long Lead-up 1
Chapter 1 Silicon Valley Bank Goes to China: Inadvertent Tech Transfer 3
1.1 Why Silicon Valley Bank? The Bank for Innovation 4
1.2 Why China? 9
1.3 Why Me? 14
Chapter 2 It Starts with Guanxi : Kissing Frogs and Finding a Prince 19
2.1 A Prince at Last 20
2.2 Reaching the King 23
Chapter 3 Orienting Ourselves: the Staff, the Teams, and The Runaround 31
3.1 Settling In: The Local Staff 32
3.2 Settling In: The Local Experts 37
3.3 Getting to Work: The Secret Team 42
Chapter 4 Pains in the Neck: the New Bank’s Location, Organization, and Identity 51
4.1 The Org Chart 53
4.2 Issues to Resolve 68
4.3 The Letter and What I Learned 71
4.4 Achieving the Impossible 73
4.5 December 2011 74
4.6 Wrapping Up 2011 77
Chapter 5 Slogging Along: Resolving Some of the Major Issues 81
5.1 The Breakthrough in the Tea House at the Zigzag Bridge 86
5.2 A Turning Point 89
5.3 Put in Our Place 91
Chapter 6 The Grand Opening and Yet More Licenses We Didn’t Have 99
6.1 A License to Wait 101
6.2 The Worry of Warrants 104
6.3 Growing Anxiety 105
6.4 Regulation 106
Chapter 7 Staffing: Ccp Offspring, Parents, and Cultural Differences 111
7.1 Recruiting: Sons and Daughters of the Party 112
7.2 Retaining: The Brain Drain 116
7.3 Deeper in the Joint Venture 118
7.3.1 Managing the Lenders 118
7.3.2 Assisting Lao Ding 120
7.3.3 The Bank That Didn’t Pay Graft 120
Chapter 8 Where the Money Goes, Finding My Successor, and More About China 123
8.1 Seeking a Successor 124
8.2 Entertainments, 2012 126
8.2.1 Chinese Medicine 130
8.3 Reflecting 132
8.4 Wrapping Up 2012 132
Part II After the License 137
Chapter 9 Hastening the Timeline: the Four-prong Strategy And What “letting the Customer Decide” Really Means 139
9.1 Complexities 145
9.2 Moving Forward, Maybe 148
9.2.1 How “Letting the Customer Decide” Really Works 151
9.2.2 Making Progress? 154
9.3 The Danger of Hope 156
Chapter 10 The New Sheriff: XI Comes to Power 159
10.1 The Party Committee 163
10.2 Building the Bank’s Culture 164
10.3 Building Guanxi 168
10.4 The Carrot Overhead 171
Chapter 11 Irreconcilable Differences: the More We Knew, The Worse Things Looked 177
11.1 The Successor Is Named 180
11.2 Filling in the Blanks 184
11.3 Wrapping Up 2013 186
Chapter 12 Wrapping Up My Stay: Staff Changes, More Lessons, Still No Rmb 193
12.1 I Could Have Gone Home 198
12.2 Becoming Vice Chairman 201
12.3 Warrants at Last 203
12.4 Conversations in Context 205
12.5 Body Count 208
12.6 Revolution on the Doorstep 212
12.7 Leaving 213
Chapter 13 Success in a Fashion: China’s New Tech Bank (which Wasn’t Us), and Being Vice Chairman 217
Part III The Chinese Communist Party 223
Chapter 14 The Ccp’s Role and Influence 225
14.1 “Party, Government, Military, Civilian, and Academic, East, West, South, North, and Center, The Party Leads Everything.” 226
14.2 The Chinese Banking System and Economy 227
14.2.1 Chinese Economics 232
14.3 Opinions of Others About the CCP 237
14.4 Attitudes of the CCP 239
14.5 Changes with Xi 241
Chapter 15 Practical Guidelines for Working with the Ccp 247
15.1 Contracts and the CCP 250
15.2 CCP Negotiation 251
15.2.1 Random Observations 256
15.3 The CCP and Control 258
15.4 The CCP and History 260
Part IV The other 93 Percent 265
Chapter 16 Chinese Beliefs 267
16.1 Chinese Beliefs 269
16.2 Attitudes Toward Americans 279
16.3 Overseas Chinese 282
Chapter 17 The Lives of the other 93 Percent 287
17.1 The Life of Xiao Hong 290
17.2 Non-Chinese Living in China 294
17.3 Strange Things That Happen 295
Chapter 18 Conclusion: Seeking Truth From Facts, Making Sense of It All, and Trying to Predict the Future 297
18.1 How Western Companies Fail in China 304
Part V Four years lessons, condensed 317
Epilogue 325
References 329
Bibliography 331
Index 339
