One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China (Wall Street Journal Book) 
It is well known that with a population of 1.3 billion people, China's market is moving quickly toward surpassing those of North America and Europe combined. Companies from the United States and around the globe are flocking there to buy, sell, manufacture, and create new products. But as former Wall Street Journal China bureau chief turned successful corporate executive James McGregor explains, business in China is conducted with a lot of subterfuge -- nothing is as it seems and nothing about doing business in China is easy.
Destined to become the bible for business people in China, One Billion Customers shows how to navigate the often treacherous waters of Chinese deal-making. Brilliantly written by an author who has lived in China for nearly two decades, the book reveals indispensable, street-smart strategies, tactics, and lessons for succeeding in the world's fastest growing consumer market.
Foreign companies rightly fear that Chinese partners, customers, or suppliers will steal their technology or trade secrets or simply pick their pockets. Testy relations between China's Communist leaders and the United States and other democracies can trap foreign companies in a political crossfire. McGregor has seen or experienced it all, and now he shares his insights into how China really works.
One Billion Customers maximizes the expansive knowledge of a respected journalist, well-known businessman, and ultimate China insider, offering compelling narratives of personalities, business deals, and lessons learned -- from Morgan Stanley's creation of a joint-venture Chinese investment bank to the pleasure dome of a smuggler whose $6 billion operation demonstrates how corruption greases the wheels of Chinese commerce. With nearly 100 strategies for conducting business in China, this unprecedented account combines practical lessons with the story of China's remarkable rise to power.
Reviews
As a person who grew up in China, I'd say this is also a great book for Chinese to see how Chinese ways of thinking and behaving are seen and interpreted through foreigners' eyes. For example, "The Chinese appear to the West to be a collective society... But always simmering just below that collective veneer is a dog-eat-dog competitive spirit that makes the Chinese among the world's most individualistic and selfish people." Being Chinese, I understand and agree with what Mr. McGregor says, and he is able to explain the complexities of the Chinese world in ways that make sense.
However, understanding the reality in China is only the first step in doing business there. Your attitude toward those realities and your creativity in dealing with them are important. As Jack Welch said in Winning, "Have a positive attitude and . . . never let yourself be a victim; and for goodness' sake - have fun." This is the most effective approach to doing business in China. Instead of complaining, for example, that your designs and products are being copied, or being frustrated because things are not as they are supposed to be (that is, according to Western ways), determine to turn every danger into opportunity. For example, instead of thinking of yourself as a victim of piracy, figure out how to turn things around so, in fact, the pirates are actually doing marketing campaigns and distributing "product samples" for you at little or no cost to you. People who buy fake Rolexes can't afford the real ones anyway, but as soon as they can, they will be sure to buy authentic ones from you.
With insights and advice from this book, plus your positive attitude and imaginative ideas on how to apply them to your unique situation, you have much better odds of winning one billion customers in China.
For example, it is frightening when you read the following in One Billion Customers:
Page 23: "The belief that foreigners strong-armed their way into China in the past two hundred years in order to plunder the country's wealth is deeply ingrained in the Chinese psyche. They are taught from childhood that China was the world's mightiest empire, the best at everything, until the foreigners came knocking at the end of the eighteenth century to ruthlessly exploit a people who had done them no harm."
Page 56 (The very first piece of advice in "The Little Red Book of Business"): "Fatigue, food, and drink are negotiating tools. If your Chinese counterpart wants to finalise a deal after a mao-tai-soaked banquet, it is better to throw up on the contract than sign it."
Page 294 (one of the last pieces of advice): "The Chinese appear to the West to be a collective society. They eat together, travel together, and have fun together. But always simmering just below that collective veneer is a dog-eat-dog competitive spirit that makes the Chinese among the world's most individual and selfish people."
After reading Dr Wei Wang's The China Executive and drawing on my own 15 years of experience in China, I now understand that the Chinese people are actually one of the nicest peoples in the world because they have built their society on the basis of human-heartedness rather than any big Western-style ideology. Therefore, in the Chinese psyche are actually mutual respect and mutual benefit. To be sure, these qualities are not enough to deliver collective results, which require a collective ideology, but this does not mean that the Chinese are among the most individual and selfish people in the world. You only need to look at the comprehensive ways in which they look after their family members and friends to understand that they relate to each other in ways that are completely different from how we relate to each other in the West.
Indeed, instead of being negotiating tools, food and drink are the most fundamental Chinese way of showing respect to Westerners, which, the Chinese believe, will energise those who get tired after travelling from the other side of the world. And remember, mao-tai - the most famous and expensive (and really the best) Chinese liquor - is only reserved for the most respected guests whether they like it or not.
It is also obvious that because the Chinese have put historical Western aggressions behind, have opened its door to the West, and have, on the whole, adopted a learning attitude in the past twenty-five years, China is today becoming one of the most powerful countries in the world.
Of course, The China Executive offers much more than the above.
I highly recommend The China Executive because you will be immediately enlightened by this book when there is a mismatch concerning the record flows of foreign direct investment surging into China and the growing list of books on doing business there.