I Don’t Care If The Rules Are Not Fair. I Win.
My experience to date working at Zhong Lun has illustrated to me the extent to which Chinese companies, especially lawyers, will go to make money. Like other Chinese businesses (remember the Wahaha dispute), Zhong Lun ignores contracts and threatens people in an effort to make money. What is normal business in China is just plain illegal and ethical elsewhere in the world.
In December, there was a sudden flush of news stories about how China was suddenly adding new administrative rules that made the import of US medical products, which to date had been one niche that US firms had filled in a very unequal trade relationship, nearly impossible, despite China’s treaty obligations. China just added a few more inspections to the import process of these goods that made it nearly impossible for the US manufacturers to get their products onto the market here. Ultimately, the issue was resolved as a result of a high level US trade delegation visit to China.
But, the practice continues, and I can give an example. Every day on my way to work I pass three KFC’s and two McDonald’s. These two restaurants are dotted all across China for a simple reason: they are the only restaurants in China that are consistently clean with food that is consistently sanitary, if not necessarily nutritious. Yet, in recent weeks, each and every KFC and McDonald’s I’ve visited, near my house and in other parts of Beijing, have a sign posted in sign that prominently displays a B grade on an A (very clean) to D (dirty), scale that local inspectors apply to it.
Rating a “B”?
I ignored this mostly for the first few weeks I saw it, for good reason since it was sort of tucked behind a set of chairs, like furniture that is too important to trash after it has lost its luster. But, when I recently visited a state run restaurant, which was large but not nearly so clean as the KFC’s and McDonald’s, and saw that it displayed near its door a sign with an “A” rating, I realized what was going on. Then, later in the week, when I visited a real hole in wall restaurant elsewhere in the city, where there isn’t hot water or even a functioning door, and saw the same “B” that the KFC and McDonald’s displayed, my conclusion became even clearer. Here is what is happening:
Beijing is sending its restaurant inspectors around the city, perhaps in preparation for the Olympics and perhaps for reasons that nobody will ever know, and requiring each and every restaurant to display these terrible, useless signs. And, somewhere in the mad mix of politics, business and overlapping greed, someone has reached the same conclusion that the PRC government did when they slapped new restrictions on the US medical companies: if you add rules and make business sufficiently intolerable for the foreign companies, eventually they won’t be able to compete.
KFC is cleaner than any other Beijing restaurants.
And, they are right. There aren’t functioning courts here, and who is going to listen to your complaint? Is it necessary or possible even at each new hassle to raise the issue to the US Treasurer, and have him initiate talks to resolve things? Of course not. So, China moves forward in its relentless quest to screw the foreigner.
