Blending in vital for Chinese business abroad
- Source: Global Times
- [02:51 December 04 2009]
- Comments
"Where there is sea, there are Chinese. Where there are Chinese, there is business." The increasing population of overseas Chinese across nearly 150 countries and regions exceeds 35 million, and there is a surge in Chinese investment abroad.
Yet tough challenges remain before the Chinese abroad can ride the wave of global business opportunities.
What happened to Chinese businesspeople in Romania should serve as an eye-opener.
Recently, under government orders, about 300 Chinese-owned stores in Bucharest's Nile Market were forced to shut down. The remaining 3,000 Chinese shop owners in the market, mostly from Zhejiang Province, are in a difficult situation where electricity and water supply may be cut off any time. Even tear gas was used Wednesday to end the clash between policemen and Chinese shop owners, which has stirred outrage among Chinese across the world.
This is not the only such clash. Of late, there has been a rash of incidents in some other countries with a sizable Chinese population.
In Tokyo, on September 26, more than 30 Japanese attacked a Chinese-owned store, waving Japan's flag and shouting, "Get out of here!" In the Philippines, on August 18, over a dozen Chinese were arrested during an immigration raid. Just weeks earlier, in July, about 150 Chinese businesspeople were picked up during a high-profile crackdown on Russia's Cherkizovsky Market.
Gone are the days when the Chinese abroad suffered from the harsh discriminatory measures such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of the US between 1882 and 1943. But rivalries, prejudices, and even hostility toward Chinese businesspeople abroad is still very much there, and often in subtle forms, as these incidents show.
