What Business Leaders Need to Know About China Now

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

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4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Elsbeth Johnson, senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and Rana Mitter, professor of history at Oxford, argue that there's a lot about the Chinese political system and economy that business leaders from elsewhere in the world still misunderstand. They argue that democracy and a free market system aren't always as tightly linked as we think, and that many people in China also live, work, and invest differently than Westerners do. Better understanding these dynamics will be the key to business success in the world's most populous country. Johnson and Mitter are the authors of the HBR article "What the West Gets Wrong About China."

Transcript

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0:00.0	So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New
0:08.1	Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for
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0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR Idea Cows from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard.
0:48.9	Several years ago, some scholars of international relations made a big prediction. The 21st
0:53.7	century would be the Chinese century. Just as the British dominated the 18th and 19th
0:58.4	centuries and the United States the 20th, China will lead the world's geoeconomics and
1:03.2	geopolitics for the next 100 years. Now some experts disagree, but there's no doubting China's
1:09.2	rise and the need for organizations around the world to better understand the country. It's
1:14.0	not just a growing source of both supply, demand, and competition. It's also an emerging
1:18.9	superpower. And yet, according to today's guests, most Westerners still don't really get
1:24.5	China. They approach for their own assumptions and biases about the connection between political
1:29.4	and economic systems, and the role that the state can and should play in business.
1:34.8	Rana Mitter is a professor at Oxford who focuses on the history and politics of modern China.
1:39.8	And Ellsbyth Johnson is a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management and founder
1:44.4	of the Consulting Firm System Shift. Together, they wrote the HBR article, What the West
1:49.1	Get's Wrong About China. Rana Ellsbyth, thanks so much for coming on the show.
1:53.2	Oh, you're welcome. Nice to be here. Nice to be here, Ellsson. Thank you.
1:59.9	So Rana, as I said, your focus is on the history and politics of China. Why does that perspective
2:05.1	matter so much for business people trying to do business there?
2:08.6	The simple reason Ellsson is that I think that all the major societies around the world,
2:13.2	particularly ones with which we in the Western world do business, China probably thinks
	...

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