Does the Capvision raid signal a crackdown on consultancies in China? The China Project's CEO Bob Guterma, formerly of Capvision, weighs in
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser is joined by The China Project's CEO Bob Guterma, who just so happens to have served at Chief Compliance Officer (and later Managing Director for Europe and the U.S.) for the expert network Capvision. Capvision, as listeners may well be aware, was the Shanghai-based company whose offices in China were raided by Chinese law enforcement, resulting in the detention of two experts for allegedly passing on military secrets to foreign companies. Does this signal a major crackdown on consultancies? And what are the implications for foreign businesses in China? Bob shares his insights — and things are more complicated than you might think.
03:39 – Background information on Capvision
10:29 – The national security concerns in the Capvision case.
12:27 – Is there a connection between the case of Capvision with the previous cases of Bain and Mintz?
20:13 – Is there changing optics for Western companies doing business in China?
22:13 – The possible connection between the Capvision case and the Espionage Law
32:22 – The context of bigger changes in the past three years in China in light of achieving government goals.
34:34 – The inner workings of a compliance officer in expert networks
36:44 – Media outlets’ misconceptions and a lack of diligent research regarding the Capvision case
A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.
Recommendations:
Bob: Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil
Kaiser: Mr. Bungle’s debut album Mr. Bungle
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Cynica podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China produced in partnership with the China Project. |
| 0:15.6 | Subscribe to Access from the China Project to get access. Access to not only our great daily dispatch newsletter, |
| 0:23.0 | but to all of the original reporting on our website at theChinaproject.com. |
| 0:28.3 | We've got reported stories, we've got essays, we've got editorials, great explainers, and trackers, |
| 0:33.6 | regular columns, and of course, a growing library of podcasts. |
| 0:38.1 | We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, |
| 0:42.6 | from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang region, |
| 0:46.8 | to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy onto a post-carbon footing. |
| 0:52.6 | It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation |
| 0:56.1 | that is reshaping the world. We cover China with neither fear nor favor. I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you |
| 1:02.6 | from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Sometimes it's hard to get the right guest with specialist |
| 1:08.1 | insider knowledge to talk about a specific story that is in the news lately. |
| 1:13.5 | This is not one of those times. |
| 1:16.3 | As many of our listeners will know, a company called CapVision made the headlines last week |
| 1:22.0 | with stories in nearly every major English language outlet about how CapVision's offices |
| 1:26.2 | were raided by authorities, though, |
| 1:28.6 | as we'll hear this actually, took place several months ago, how this was part of a broader |
| 1:33.3 | crackdown on consultancies in China coming on the heels as it did, of the much-talked about |
| 1:38.6 | raid on Bain, and with some claiming that it was related to the new anti-espionage law. |
| 1:45.1 | And in any case, how this was surely scaring off foreign firms |
| 1:48.7 | and part of this newly intolerable hostile environment |
| 1:53.5 | toward foreign businesses in China. |
... |
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