Capitalizing On Government Repression

Everyone I meet is afraid. The chief executive of one of China's largest hotel groups is afraid to complain to the police about the hustlers who sell fake watches outside the lobbies of his hotels. A Buddhist who runs a network of factories is afraid to speak openly about the Chinese occupation of Tibet. A sports marketing official, one of the agents for China's basketball stars, is afraid to speak out against misguided policies of the national sports system.

What is unusual about these people is not that they are afraid; many people in China are. What is unusual about these people is that they are Americans doing business in China -- some even doing business successfully. What they fear, of course, is the same thing that China's people fear: the arbitrary power of government.

For Americans doing business in China, it is a short step between fear and collaboration, as I recently found during a two-week visit to Shanghai and Beijing, the two leading destinations in China for American "expats."

My first meeting in Shanghai was not with Americans, but with Chinese nationals working for them. On a Sunday afternoon I sat in a shiny Starbucks near the city's central park, tucked into the rear corner of the shop, drinking coffee with five young people (three men and two women) who each work for a large American company in China. They all agreed that working for an American company had benefits over employment with a Chinese company. There was more openness at work, more emphasis on performance and more room to take chances. But one thing was the same: If they were caught criticizing the government, or even breaking the petty rules that govern their social lives -- such as the ban on meeting in formal associations that might touch on political and social issues -- the American company would not intervene to help them.

A few days later, an American who used to work for Nike explains to me why he won't stick his neck out for the Chinese or even his own principles: fear of retaliation. The American has his own sports marketing company, organizes amateur basketball tournaments throughout China and even advises China's version of the NBA. He knows Yao Ming, star of the Houston Rockets, personally. When talk comes around to the poor performance of China's international basketball team, the American offers an explanation: China's government officials are ruining Yao Ming and other top players by making them play year-round for China's national team, often sacrificing time for much-needed rest and skills building. The American knows of what he speaks, since he is the agent for the country's leading point guard who, like Yao Ming, is a victim of the government's sports policies.

I say that this is a shame, and the American agrees. But he isn't about to campaign for better treatment of these stars. In his office we are surrounded by posters of leading Chinese athletes. He points to a poster of Wang Zhizhi, a tall Chinese man who backed up Shaquille O'Neal last year for the Miami Heat. Wang rebelled against the Chinese government by refusing to play for the national team at last year's Olympics. He is now persona non grata, not only to the Chinese government, but the sports marketing establishment here. This American won't touch him, nor will anyone else, out of fear of antagonizing the Chinese government and losing lucrative deals.

Free Speech Be Damned

The sports marketer is guilty of keeping his mouth shut. But other Americans actively assist the Chinese government in the maintenance of its repressive regime. Even as I talk to the sports marketer, Microsoft is concocting an Orwellian policy for its new Chinese version of MSN, a news site and search engine. Microsoft has decided (and publicly confirmed this summer) that anyone in China doing a search containing the words "freedom" or "democracy" will be shown a message explaining that those words are banned and the requested search query will not be processed.