Mind the Gaps: Singapore Business in China

2. What Business People Say

Singapore Business in China 29© 2005 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 2 What Business People Say Introduction Singapore-China business relations can be viewed through various lenses. Macro-statistics tell one story. They highlight two trends. First, (the obvious) that Singapore’s trade and investment with China is increasing at a rapid rate, and looks set to continue to increase. Second, as is natural when one compares a country with a population of 1.3 billion, with a country with a population of 4 million, there is a fundamental and permanent asymmetry in the relationship. China matters more to Singapore in terms of trade and investment, than Singapore does to China. Consistently amongst the top investors and trade partners, Singapore is a relatively significant player in China’s current economic expansion. There are no available statistics on the exact numbers of Singapore business persons in China, and even if there were, the norm for many is to become commuter executives, spending up to three weeks per month in China, and the remainder in Singapore. It would be difficult, therefore, to count commuter versus resident executives. One guesstimate recently cited in an article in the Singapore Straits Times demonstrates how relatively few Reproduced from Mind the Gaps: Singapore Business in China, by Sree Kumar, Sharon Siddique and Yuwa Hedrick-Wong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at 30 Sree Kumar, Sharon Siddique and Yuwa Hedrick-Wong© 2005 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore Singapore business people there probably are in China. The paper reports that “In Shanghai there are 300,000 Taiwanese against 3,000 Singaporeans. In Suzhou there are 200 Singaporeans against 20,000 Taiwanese”.21 But there is an equally important observation to be made about relative size. The same article points out that Taiwan’s population at 23 million is just 6 times that of Singapore. This suggests that Taiwan’s interest in China is much more all-embracing than Singapore. This reflects the fact that Taiwan’s economy is more linked to that of China. In fact, Singapore’s investment and trade diversification policies strive for a balanced basket of locations, including the USA, Europe, Japan, and developing regions. Thus not only are there relatively few Singapore businessmen residing in China, but because they are generally fluent in English, well-financed, and familiar with international business standards, they are stretched across the world. In the last section of Chapter 1, we focused on two provinces — Liaoning and Zhejiang — in which Singapore agencies have expressed a particular interest because of certain inherent synergies with Singapore. As the interest in these provinces is relatively new, we decided to include company interviews in Shanghai and Suzhou, the business epicentre of Singapore’s investment and trade expansion into China. Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), which recently celebrated ten years of operation, has come to symbolize the application of “the Singapore model” in China. We have highlighted several Singapore companies that have recently been in the news because of their China business interests. In Chapter 2 we shift focus from the macro-economic and company levels, to the people who are directly involved in the development and operation of Singapore-China business enterprises and investments. We interviewed a total of 88 individuals in China and Singapore of which 48 were Chinese nationals (including 3 from Taiwan), 38 were Singaporeans, and the remaining 2 were Chinese Malaysians (for details, see Appendix 1). The purpose of these interviews was to understand Mainland Chinese views on Singapore businesses operating in China, and Singapore views on doing business in China. Interviews were conducted either in Mandarin or in English, and the working language of analysis is English. There was no formal questionnaire, and no attempt was made to quantify interviewee responses, other than to note how frequently a particular observation was recorded. What gradually emerged out of Singapore Business in China 31© 2005 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore analysing these interviews is a topical nexus of interrelated issues and opinions on Singapore-China business relations. At the core of these perceptions are certain cultural assumptions, which require explanation. These cultural assumptions in turn impact on how management styles are perceived. Finally, these management...