Setting Up An Office a.k.a. taking revenge on westerners for the industrial revolution

The Chinese have been pissed about this Industrial Revolution thing for years. According to their greatest scholars, in reality it was really a "Counterrevolution" staged by westerners with the sole purpose of keeping China down. Now that they have uncovered this plot, they are steaming mad and willing to do anything to even the score with the westerners who dared to treat China with so little respect. One of the ways they do this is by making it extremely difficult for westerners to open offices in China. Following is a brief overview of what joys you can expect when setting up your office in China. Keep in mind, this is the same treatment you get whether you are buying, selling, or investing billions of dollars in China.

Setting Up a Branch Office In China

Sorry, you are out of luck if you simply want to set up a branch office. That would be too easy for you, and you would therefore not appreciate the honor of being able to do business in China. Also it would make it difficult for the Gong An Ju to track you down and squeeze you for "security" or "guard" services, one of their favorite scams these days.

Liaison Office

See above.

Representative Office

By definition, "a representative office is an entity involved in business activities that do not result in direct profit being earned by the office." This not-so-subtle hint gives away China's real attitude towards foreign business people in China.

But wait. Before you open your office, you need a sponsor.

Sponsor

All representative offices must be formally sponsored by a Chinese host organization. What is their function? They charge you money for nothing? No, actually they charge you money for giving you a lot of trouble and asking you for numerous favors since they are your "old friends." "Old friends" on account of you were pushed in their direction by a government official whose brother works there and now you are paying them money for giving you a lot of trouble. Who wouldn't be friendly with such stupid westerners?

OK, so you're willing to put up with the less than useless sponsor. You're even willing to pay for this honor. So now you have to rent some actual space.

Renting Office Space

Now start looking for office space. Rents in major cities in China are some of the highest in the world. On a "value received per dollar spent" basis, they are ten times more expensive than in any other country. Is this because there is very little space available? No, there is plenty of empty space. But rental rates are controlled by the government, and they figure they might as well rape the westerners at any possible chance. Don't forget, this is all done to even the score for that "Industrial Counterrevolution" thing. So you should be sensitive to the Chinese on this point.

OK, so you decide to bite the bullet and pay big time rent. Gee, you were originally planning on taking things slowly for the first year in China; you know, take the long term Chinese approach. Now with this ever growing overhead before you have even started, you are going to have lots of pressure to bring in some business even in the first month. Oh well, that's life. But at least you'll have a really classy office facility based on this huge rent you will be charged. Right?

Office Space Quality

Here is a description of office space in a famous 5 star hotel complex in Beijing. This is as good as it gets:
-Cold in winter, hot in summer,
-bathrooms: deserve their own website to fully explain,
-windows won't close tightly so coal dust blows in and kills all computers in sight,
-ceilings leak and nobody can figure out why,
-jackhammer construction goes on all year long in order to fix the leaky ceilings on the floor down below yours,
-phones are extremely expensive to install,
-you are not allowed to bring in your own phone system since it has not been properly bugged by the An Quan Ju,
-fax machines need to be certified by the phone company before you can use them otherwise they may "burn the telephone lines," (this is not, repeat, is not simply another excuse to shake down westerners for more money).
-forget the old story about the hotel staff returning a used razor blade; anything in your office that is not bolted down can easily go missing at any time. The cleaning and repair people normally take these things home for their personal use and consider this to be fair since you are rich and they are not. We better stop here to avoid going ballistic on a rant about petty and not-so-petty thievery in China.

Sounds fun, right? Now go back to our main page and read some more about the delights of getting an apartment in China. Click the link below...

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