How To Influence People Without Winning Friends
Posted by MyLaowai on Thursday, July 9, 2009
There’s this big company – let’s call it Company R – that produces a product a certain country needs to build things, including weapons and military infrastructure. Other companies also produce the product, but Company R is one of the biggest and the best.
Due to a temporary fall in the share price of Company R, the ‘Government’ of this country quietly puts up the cash for a domestic competitor to buy a large, controlling, stake in Company R. However, the domestic competitor and the ‘Government’ take months arguing and complaining and trying to squeeze Company R for every concession they can get.
Eventually, the share price of Company R increases back to the point at which it makes no commercial sense to go forward with the deal, and Company R’s investors call the whole thing off. They do, however, pay the foreign competitor (and thus the foreign ‘Government’) a very generous sum of cash in order to soften the blow.
Company R subsequently announces a 33% price cut in it’s products for the markets in Japan, South Korea, and the un-named country mentioned above.
The so-called ‘industry’ of the above-mentioned country, which is in reality the so-called ‘Government’, refuses to pay the same amount that Japanese and South Koreans pay, claiming that they deserve a better price. Why this should be is not clarified.
Company R sends it’s negotiating team to a major city in the foreign country, in order to straighten things out. They offer a generous compromise, setting the contract duration at just half of what Japanese and South Korean customers must commit to, and offering as well to sell their product at the daily rate set by the markets – whichever is cheaper.
The self-proclaimed ‘Government’ of the afore-mentioned country then sends in the security forces to kick down the door, arrest the negotiating team, ransack their local office, steal their computers and sensitive commercial data, and pack the victims – who are now hostages – off to a remote prison cell.
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.
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This is a perfect example of why it does not pay to negotiate with terrorists.
Wo Shi Laowai - Wo Pa Shui 
Neddy said
[FIRST! – ML]
You say “it does not pay to negotiate with terrorists”. I would change that to “it does not pay to negotiate with Mafia”.
People’s Daily Online, 08:14, July 08, 2009 (H/T to Danvei; I wouldn’t go and read that shit otherwise):
“Chinese police chief urges tough crackdown on gangsters”
“Meng Jianzhu, state councilor and public security minister, made the remarks at a tele-conference Tuesday, urging police authorities to master the movements of gangster groups.
Police authorities should target on major gangster groups and root out the “protective umbrella” behind them, the police chief said.
Police forces should prevent Communist Party and government officials from being corrupted by those underworld organizations, and also prevent those organizations from manipulating grassroots elections and other political issues by violence, threats and bribery, Meng said.”
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90785/6695409.html
A big ask, I think, what with the
Mother of All Organised CrimeCCPee in charge of the show. Or are they on the list of targets, and the revolution has already begun?Ned Kelly said
I just want to clarify that the above commenter “Neddy”, is not me.
And here’s a link to one of our blog posts regarding all this, on which MyLaowai left a welcome comment linking back to this:
http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/chinas-version-of-soft-power-update/
Ned Kelly said
And although my co-blogger Catherine has dissuaded me from posting this clip on any of our deadly serious blog-posts about China’s illegal and anarchic arrest of Rio Tinto executives on the spurious grounds of their being “bad people”, nonetheless, as MyLaowai is a venue for unreserved satire, here at MyLaowai I will suggest that THIS is an example of the kind of “forensics” that China’s putative “legal system” is using vis a vis Rio Tinto, not to mention the vast majority of Chinese who continue to suffer under THIS kind of “forensic evidence” and “law” in the PRC:
LoveChinaLongTime said
Sucks when the Mafia and Triads are competing against the real thugs-in-charge: PLA, PSB and CCP.
This is also a wake up call for all these foreign (and in a lot of cases, local ones)companies fawning over Shanghai rising as some sort of ersatz Asian financial center.
Ned Kelly said
Not to mention that AMERICA’s Mafia actually built things to last, in contrast to Chinese mafia whose skycrapers in Shanghai are empty, unused, and will become slums or else be destroyed within the next ten years or so.
“OH, OH, there are so many skyscrapers in Shanghai! It’s such an amazing city!” Yeah well, go back to Shanghai twenty years from now, and most of those useless skycrapers will be slums, if they still exist at all.
Rio Staff made scapegoat for CISA’s incompetence « Under the Jacaranda Tree said
[…] but not least, my sincere thanks to MyLaowai for his generosity. Thanks mate. The next martini is on […]
MyFenwai said
Yeah well, go back to Shanghai twenty years from now, and most of those useless skycrapers will be slums, if they still exist at all.
Like Detroit? I doubt it, there are lots of people in China who could sit around in the skyscrapers. Will they make a profit? Maybe not.
MyLaowai said
@Neddy (1st post):
1. If you are going to be first to post, then at least have the decency to claim credit for it. I have corrected your omission for you on your behalf.
2. Mafia is a very good analogy for the CCP in particular, and Chinese society in general. This point I have made to all of my clients abroad.
@Everyone reading:
Excellent post here:
http://justrecently.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/once-you-get-arrested/
Neddy said
There is another one by C.A.Yeung:
http://underthejacaranda.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/simon-crean-snubbed-by-china/
I feel it would be nice if the Oz would take a page out of the Chinese playbook: A top level private communication saying “Yes, we are very solly, but we want our man back, now. Er, you do want our uranium, don’t you?”
What do you say, comrade Rudd? Not that I am holding my breath…
MyLaowai said
Even better if the major industrial players collectively instruct these terrorist bastards to stop their games, or risk not being supplied by anyone.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this has been discussed privately already. I reckon shareholders would support the decision, even if it did mean a drop in share price.
justrecently said
Are you crazy?! If you don’t make it in China, you make it nowhere!! (snickers)
justrecently said
I mean, just think of it: if 1.3 bn ppl had one coke a day each!
LoveChinaLongTime said
Problem is, at least half the Cokes would be fake.
MyLaowai said
Just think of it: If 1.3 bn people had a xenophobic hour of hate each day!
MyFenwai said
I mean, just think of it: if 1.3 bn ppl had one coke a day each!
That’s a lot of diabetes
C.A. Yeung said
MyLaowai said, “Even better if the major industrial players collectively instruct these terrorist bastards to stop their games, or risk not being supplied by anyone.”
Or even better, an Australian investment consultant is urging his clients to dump China and buy gold and silver. He gave 2 reasons to backup his warning:
1. China’s credit bubble is about to burst.
2. China’s decision to develop an energy-intensive industrial revolution is a bad strategy: “global energy production per capita has peaked and is headed for permanent decline. In other words, industrial civilisation has a lifespan of around 100 years, and we have reached that life span. That would seem like bad news. Of course, perhaps post industrial civilisation will be a more pleasant place, albeit with fewer calories and no climate control. In all seriousness, though, if there is any truth to the idea that energy production per capita has peaked, it means China has picked a very bad time to have an energy-intensive industrial revolution. And to the extent Australia is now dependent on China for its prosperity, well the consequences are self-evident.”
http://tinyurl.com/ly24pk