An initial report from Beijng follows.
First of all, the city appears to be growing exponentially. As more than one long-time resident has told me, "it changes every day" and "although I’ve lived here all my life, sometimes I wake up and don’t recognize it." I reported a few weeks ago that I’d never seen so many construction cranes before in the City of London, but I’ve seen more this week. You are never without sight of one.
Although the first things you see after exiting Customs in the airport are a Starbucks and a KFC (and McDonald’s seems to be ubiquitous), that is deeply misleading. The culture, the way of life, the customs, and the simple ways of doing business are inescapably different. This, as they say, is a good thing.
Herewith a brief recap to date:
The good:
- The city’s energy level is intense; people are full of vigor and purpose in every walk of life, from the most senior officials to the greeters at office buildings and hotels.
- Law firms are competing intensely; few or no "winners" have emerged and, to some indeterminate extent, the playing field remains open.
- Economic and regulatory restrictions seem to be easing; I have heard no one complain that regulations would impede them from doing what they wish (although foreign lawyers can still not appear in Chinese courts, file for patents, or represent debtors in bankruptcy, among other things).
The bad:
- Environmental awareness is in a juvenile stage; the air is as polluted as any I’ve ever seen, and while the government is allegedly taking great strides in addressing this, the demands of a growing GDP (12% annually by some estimates) means they’re pursuing a receding goal.
- Add to that concern that population growth mandates a certain growth rate in jobs to ensure political stability, and add on top of that that officials in the provinces may be more inclined to look the other way even in the face of violations of centrally imposed environmental (and other) mandates, and you have a recipe for continued stalemate on this issue.
- Traffic is paralyzing.
That said, this is as vibrant a city as I’ve experienced—not more vibrant than London or New York, but on a rough par.
The difference may be rooted in China’s 5,000 years of history. Whereas London has about 1,000 years of post-William-the-Conqueror history and New York has perhaps 300 years of meaningful history, Beijing is truly ancient. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that in Europe the Neanderthals were not that distant a memory while at the same time in China civilization was far advanced. (If you doubt this, just see the Great Wall and/or The Forbidden City.)
This is not intended as a cross-cultural or political comparison, but as an observation about some of the background fundamentals of the market here in law-firm land.
To an extent without compare anywhere else I’ve been, firms are identified as foreign or as domestic. It’s a base-level, intrinsic distinction, and one not likely to expire in our lifetimes or certainly during our careers. Its implications for strategies for success remain unclear to me at the moment, but they shall be the subject of future articles.
