One of my biggest benefits about China was that I truly had no idea what I was doing and no links to China. Consequently, when I got there I was like the proverbial 4 year old walking around asking "Why?" all the time. It didn't take long to figure out one had to hold 1/n
Everything China very loosely. By that I mean, if they knocked on my door or fired me, nod agree and say sure, let me throw some things in a roll on and we can go. Too many people, firms, institutions prioritize staying in China either for a market, professional reasons, 2/n
or for whatever reason. China knows this. You either start towing the line and their pernicious logic begins to creep in and you start thinking about things like apologizing to the government for a headline when you would never in a million years consider such BS 3/n
Figuring out I should just expect that knock on the door was in many ways very freeing because I purposefully said, I'm going to be me and when the day comes, pack up and leave. That's it. I was talking to someone recently who left under similar circumstances and they said 4/n
Many people or institutions just can't handle that. Whether it is the loss of revenue. Loss of relationships. Loss of identity. Other things. Fundamentally though, if you are acting with integrity and saying this is not right, you are going to run afoul of Beijing and the CCP 5/n
You can either choose to bend the knee and kiss the ring (apologize to the CCP and Beijing for a headline) or say no, I would not do that any place else so why am I doing it here and accept the consequences of a life well lived. This arrives at the fundamental problem: 6/n
Challenging China and its perverse logic and system is going to be a costly challenge. The idea from so many that if we just negotiated better, we could convince Beijing of what is in it's self interest and they would join liberal open democracies and we would all sing 7/n
Kumbaya around the UN campfire and roast S'mores is just delusional. I don't mind tariffs because China will not change policy with just a pretty please. Don't get me started on the WTO and China respecting IP. Subsidies? There must be significant cost imposition. 8/n
It's not pleasant but China has stated it will not change its behavior so we have to figure out our best policy in light of their declarations. Not imposing costs on things like their propaganda/intelligence hackery or trade practices/subsidies is simply propagating bad policy.
