Brands Must Face Americans’ China Concerns
隨著中國總理胡錦濤訪美行程，美國政府及企業的壓力也漸提升，根據一市調統計，中國將會帶來的威脅在近幾年越來越受到美國人的重視，甚至有受訪者認為，中國帶來的影響將比南韓來得更嚴重。推究原因，就在於中國政府對於商業交易、金融、智財保護等的高度影響力。美國有許多的企業都積極的在中國擴展版圖，不管是在設廠製造上或是出口銷售上，需要面對的問題除了兩國政策的不同，最重要的還有不停改變的中美關係，為了讓公司受到的影響最小，各個企業最好要隨時繃緊神經應付瞬息萬變的國際局勢。
President Obama isn’t the only leader who’s got China on his mind this week, with the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington. More CEOs and CMOs of American companies are realizing that their own day of reckoning on China may be drawing near.
President Obama isn’t the only leader who’s got China on his mind this week, with the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington. More CEOs and CMOs of American companies are realizing that their own day of reckoning on China may be drawing near.
A new poll of Americans by the Pew Research Center, for instance, shows that 65% of respondents perceive China either as a “serious problem” for the United States or as an “adversary,” up from 60% in late 2009 and significantly above average such responses to the question over the last 15 years.
And 20% saw China as the country now posing the “greatest danger” to the United States, more than for any other nation – even North Korea.
The reasons for Americans’ gnawing concerns about China keep multiplying.
The Chinese are the single biggest holder of our federal debt. China’s military is increasingly advanced and assertive. And the Chinese government is difficult when it comes to trade issues such as currency valuation and intellectual-property protections for companies.
So far, U.S.-based brands largely have ignored such growing concerns at home as they have concentrated on exploiting business opportunities in and with China.
Many, of course, have come to rely on China as a crucial source of manufactured goods for import to the U.S. and elsewhere; Wal-Mart is the leading example of that. Or they are tapping into China as a fast-growing domestic market; think of Procter & Gamble. Or American companies are doing both: General Motors, for instance, increasingly is leveraging engineering talent in China as well as selling more and more vehicles to Chinese consumers.
Joel Ewanick, GM's global CMO, recently told me how he's determined to keep the corporate head low on the question of America's increasingly tense relationship with China – which has emerged as a hugely important source of engineering as well as a domestic market for General Motors.
"You can make yourself crazy trying to anticipate [developments] and how they would change consumer behavior in the United States and other countries," Ewanick said. "Sure, we have contingency plans, but you've got to live for today, and hope that smart people keep [the two countries] out of trouble."
Other CEOs are openly tangling with China and Chinese interests, most notably Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who's been publicly resisting Chinese control of the Internet there. And CEOs in other American industries, including “clean-tech” energy and coated papers, who are calling for U.S.-government action against Chinese-government subsidies of their competitors.
The business dynamics of the U.S.-China relationship are changing fast. And American brands had better keep up.