Selling one's soul to be in China

Global companies are often criticized for sacrificing their principles and core values in coming to China. Look at how hard Google and Yahoo! were hit last year over internet censorship issues.

China is too big a country for global marketers not to stake out a place for themselves.

But do nonprofit entities also shift their values to have a presence in China? In conversations with colleagues recently, several have suggested that just as companies may bend their rules to come to China so do global philanthropies/advocacy groups.

I don’t mean to pick on Greenpeace, but it may be a good place to start. Greenpeace has a pretty big office in Beijing with (I believe) several dozen people. They’ve also got an office in Guangzhou. Some of their folks are quite talented and well-intentioned.

Greenpeace worldwide is involved in all sorts of campaigns, and sometimes its tactics are confrontational. A quick internet search turns up examples in recent weeks. In vintage Greenpeace style, activists aboard dinghies in Lake Erie (Canada) on Aug. 30 painted the hull of a freighter with the signs “No Coal” and “Clean Energy.”

On Sept. 15, the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise briefly blocked a freighter leaving Canada carrying wood pulp to Europe. It was part of an anti-logging campaign.

In northwestern Argentina, Greenpeace activists are camped out in the treetops in the Yungas forest in a campaign against logging of native forests there.

In the Swiss Alps, a Greenpeace-commissioned photographer posed hundreds of naked people in front of a melting glacier to call attention to global warming on Aug. 18.

In Papua New Guinea and Australia and on to the Philippines, Greenpeace activists are involved in all sorts of campaigns, such as anti-whaling efforts or against rampant logging.

In China, arguably the most polluted major nation where Greenpeace has an office, the group seems marginalized or silent on some major issues. One would be forgiven for thinking they are more interested in being seen than in being effective. There are no tree-climbing or ship-painting stunts here in China. Instead, in May Greenpeace co-organized a rock festival.

Now, one can easily argue that while in China one has to operate by the laws and realities of China. That is an argument big companies often make, Yahoo included. Greenpeace activists would probably be thrown in a labor camp for boarding a coal ship, and their local offices shut down. My inkling is that these are the kinds of pragmatic choices that not only private companies but also nonprofit groups make on entering China.

Greenpeace, I'm sure, is not the only possible example, and I may not have all the facts. But can anyone offer other cases of groups that may be tinkering with core beliefs or changing behavior to be in China?

In full disclosure, Greenpeace China has helped me in past years write about electronic waste in Guangdong province and on renewable wind energy. I consider some of their present and former employees, inside and outside of China, as friends. 

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I am afraid that as an individual I am guilty of "tinkering with my core beliefs" since arriving three years ago in China.A solid Mid-West American, who had done some travel abroad and lived for a period of time in Mexico City in the late 1990's, I was flabberghasted at the poverty and begging on the streets of Shanghai and Beijing. I was speechless when traveling near Xian to see people living in hole/caves dug into the side of dirt hills.
Nowadays, I find my self steping past the prone homeless person on the subway stairs with hardly a tremor of human empathy. What have I allowed to happen to myself. Has the sheer enormity of the human suffering here sucked the soul right out of me. What would Mother Theresa do? Exactly where would she begin?

[Matthias]

Even if Greenpeace is not doing some spectacular actions is China at the moment, I think that their strategy is not wrong. China people need to become aware of environmental problems and possible solutions how one can help. I attended the MIDI rock festival in Beijing and was surprised to see it sponsored by Greenpeace, however I think it is a good way to address a large crowd of people and make them aware of the problems.

[nanheyangrouchuan]

The big question with regard to Greenpeace's morals in China would be: did they make a profit off of the concert? If so, they've sold out. If not, they have found a more subtle way to engage in environmental education. Green student groups I met in China are openly watched, just goes to show China is not serious about changing its habits for environmental resurrection.

China is hell and the CCP is the devil and doing deals there makes everyone bad people.

[Pffefer]

"China is hell and the CCP is the devil and doing deals there makes everyone bad people. "

Then why don't you get the hell out? For money? I guess you have sold yourself out!

[Pffefer]

"I was speechless when traveling near Xian to see people living in hole/caves dug into the side of dirt hills."

Holes and caves in Shaanxi? You didn't mean "Yao Dong", did you? Actually those are pretty cool compared to the more run-down houses and huts you find in the PRC's countryside. They are supposed to be cool in summer and fairly warm in winter, I was told. That's just how generations of peasants in Shaanxi lived, nothing wrong with it.

There are sure many ills and wrongs in the PRC and you certainly can't change or reverse them all. That does not mean you have sold your soul. Would we call any Yank or Brit who doesn't stand up against the invasion of Iraq a person who has sold his/her soul?

[nanheyangrouchuan]

Pffefer:

I don't "get the hell out" because I spy on foreigner business people for interested parties in Canada, the US and Europe. Helps supplement the income and is much more thrilling than my day job.

[Pffefer]

So your job is to make sure foreigners living in the PRC realize what a hell hole the PRC is, huh? A professional China-basher or "dragon-slayer", wow, that's a first. See, the evil China somehow helps you make more money. It's not so bad after all.

[nanheyangrouchuan]

Pfeffer, my guess is you can't go home from China, so you have to make the best of it for the rest of your days on this earth.

Or maybe you could move to Laos or something.

[Pffefer]

Actually nh, I think your description of my situation suits you better. If you detest China and the Chinese this much, why are you staying in China? Nobody is asking you to stay here. You can't go home? I will buy you an one-way airline ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba!

[nanheyangrouchuan]

Unlike you pfeffer, I can come and go out of China as I please.

I imagine you are considering interior China for business opportunities because you are played out on the east coast.

[bianxiangbianqiao]

Quite some Western entities are lamenting about themselves and their peers sacrificing moral principles to do business in China, to engage in China, or just to be in China. These lamenting sessions are led by the US congress, businesses (like goole), journalists (see this one) and even environmentalists (green peace). One western blogger even suggested that some western entities have "sold their soul to be in China". Even the Green Peace has mended their ways (sponsoring concerts in Beijing, instead of disrupting others people's activities) to have a presence in China. I don’t know whether that's soft power or hard power, but it sounds like a lot of power.

What is power? Power is the capacity to induce compliance, to make people comply according to your will. Being able to induce compliance in your competitors, making them bend backwards to accommodate your needs demonstrates your power, your ability to prevail over constraining environment. As long as they comply, you do not need to pay too much attention to their complaints and lamentation, except taking these expressions as indices of your power; the more they lament, the more you know that you are prevailing over them. Your competitor's attitude toward you is the most accurate gauge of how well you are doing in the competition. If your competitor is pleased with you, you are losing. If he is frustrated, you are winning. Frustration is a natural emotional reaction to wanting something and being prevented from getting it. The party that is losing the game gets frustrated because it wants to win and being prevented from reaching this goal.

Giving up their souls is a lot of sacrifice for westerners to be in China. Unlike us God-less and materialistic Chinese, they supposedly care a lot for their souls. Having sacrificed their moral principles, their souls, or spirits or ghosts, whatever you call them, will burn in hell forever. Doesn’t that sound horrible? As Chinese, let us pity them and congratulate ourselves.

It may be aesthetically more palatable if you make people comply willingly and delightfully instead of grudgingly. However, that is mission impossible as far as your competitors are concerned. The "leader of the free world" has long declared China as a "strategic competitor". He is in agreement with many, if most people in the west I have met and heard from. The people you can induce willing and delightful compliance are your collaborators, not competitors. (Their complying behavior should be more accurately labeled as "support".)

[Christine]

Tim,
Thanks for a great article. I've reposted this in The China Business Network's Facebook group and shared it throughout the network.
Christine
Founder, The China Business Network