Wednesday, September 3, 2014

American Businesses Feel Targeted by China

 This article discusses how many American firms feel regarding a Chinese government crackdown on foreign firms.  In only one year, an additional nineteen percent of members in the American Chamber of Commerce in China feel less welcome doing business overseas in the Chinese economy.  Several large American firms, including Apple and Microsoft, have recently been investigated by the Chinese government for allegations of corruption, price-fixing, and anti-trust violations.  So do these businesses have a reason to feel targeted?

The article mentions that China's government is undergoing massive campaigns to help target corruption and pricing problems.  For this reason, it may be an overreaction of some companies to feel 'targeted', especially since many Chinese companies have also recently undergone scrutiny.  I don't believe that it is China making a direct target of the United States and our companies that have presence there.

On the other hand, press, whether domestic or international, can have major impacts on the stock prices of companies.  In this respect, I believe that the American companies should be careful while under scrutiny of the Chinese government, because it could have major implications of their stock price and shareholder satisfaction.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/03/news/china-us-business/index.html?iid=SF_E_River

3 comments:

  1. I think this is really interesting. In 2014 so far, we've already traded almost $156,000,000 with China.If we want to continue to trade so heavily with them, we not only need to find a way to effectively communicate, as we are clearly not doing so, we might want to come up with a common business standard that both countries will follow while engaging in trade. If we find a way to strengthen our weakening economic relationship with China, it would be beneficial for both countries.

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  2. I agree with your comment that American firms should not feel targeted. It sounds like China's government is cracking down on some of their own firms in their anti-corruption campaign as well as other foreign companies. Therefore, any claims made by foreign firms that they are being specifically targeted do not appear to be justified. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see how this new campaign affects China's business with other countries.

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  3. Perhaps the two countries could create some sort of neutral entity that keeps a check on regulations between the two. I think each country solely investingating their own companies could lead to problems because the outside nation will feel as if they aren't getting to see all the facts. It also raises problems when the one nation decides to investigate the other, as the investigated companies feel like they are being attacked. Creating a third party group involving members of both countries could hopefully solve these two issues so the two countries can trade without issue.

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