China Law Blog

I gave a talk last week at the Plastics News Executive Forum in Tampa, Florida as one of three on a China panel. Jim Walter, Senior VP - Worldwide Product Integrity at Mattel, led off with a fascinating and informative talk on how he spent his summer vacation. Jeremy Haft President of BChinaB and author of the book, All The Tea in China, then gave an excellent presentation on the opportunities in China. My talk was called The Eight Yins And Yangs and it dealt with the contradictions of doing business in China.

On my way to Florida, I read a preview copy of the just released book, Managing the Dragon, by Jack Perkowski. The book details Perkowski's business life from the time he decided to leave NYC investment banking to embark upon business in China, and the trials and tribulations he faced along the way.

This book is the best book I have read on how to do business in China. The best, Jerry! Businesspeople often ask me what book they should read to learn about China. From now on, I will tell them, Managing The Dragon. It is that good.

One of the reasons I liked it so much is because I agreed with just about every word of advice in there on how to conduct business in China. The book helped me to hone my speech, because my speech was pretty much tracking the book's advice before I had even read it.

In addition to being a great primer on how to conduct business in China, parts of it were simply riveting. My favorite chapters were on how Perkowski managed to extricate his company from a couple of joint ventures, once peacefully and once by having to engage in "guerilla warfare." I absolutely loved the warfare chapter both because it was so exciting and because I went through pretty much the exact same thing (just add threatened violence and vodka) on behalf of a client in Russia.

The Economist Magazine calls Managing the Dragon a must read:

Managing the Dragon, Jack Perkowski's story of his almost 13 years running Asimco, an automotive components maker, in China is therefore a rare treat—a first-hand account of the struggle to build a business there. Tim Clissold, Mr Perkowski's former colleague, has already described how Asimco's Chinese partners cheated it out of millions, in his riveting 2004 book, “Mr China”. But Mr Perkowski hung on, and his wise and ultimately optimistic account should be required reading for anyone starting a business in China. Mr Perkowski is sensible on every issue—from the need to nurture (and listen to) local managers to the relative importance of local over central government relations. Most of all, foreigners must not shun the impossibly cut-throat local market because the price paid for a product in China today will be its price globally tomorrow.

Buy it. Read it. You will not be disappointed. I Promise.