Marriott, others bow to China to protect biz interests
FOR MARRIOTT, it was the wording of a survey emailed to members of its rewards club. At fashion brand Zara, it was a dropdown menu on its web site. And for Audi, it was a presentation at the German car maker’s annual meeting that showed a map of China that excluded Taiwan and parts of Tibet.
All three drew a backlash from the Chinese government in the past week, as did more than two dozen other international corporations - including Delta Air Lines, Qantas and Medtronic - for listing Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and Macau as separate countries.
The Chinese government, further extending its political reach on the web and through social media, has demanded public apologies from the companies. In Marriott’s case, the Chinese government also forced the company to shut down all six of its Chinese web sites and apps for one week after a US-based employee “liked” a tweet favouring Tibetan independence.
All of the companies have moved to mollify Beijing - and their Chinese customers. “It was an inadvertent error with no business or political intention, and we apologise for the mistake,” a spokeswoman for Delta said in an email. “As one of our most important markets, we are fully committed to China and our Chinese customers.”
“This is a huge mistake, probably one of the biggest in my career,” Craig Smith, president and managing director of Marriott’s Asia-Pacific office, was quoted as saying in the state- owned China Daily.
The efforts by Beijing to curtail free speech at companies doing business with China fits into a larger narrative about the nature of China relations abroad. In recent months, China has also sought to support pro-Beijing campus groups and has warned Chinese students abroad against involvement in groups critical of China.
Once American scholars spoke of the virtue of US cultural and economic “soft power” that sought to build support of American ideals around the world. A December report by the National Endowment for Democracy suggested another term for China and Russia, which it said were projecting “sharp power” that relies on coercion without any effort to “win hearts and minds.”
“As China’s power and influence grows, corporations will have to ask themselves the same question governments have had to: To what degree do the economic benefits of working with China run counter to the values and principles these companies uphold?” said Ely Ratner, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“The question becomes whether or not these companies want to be complicit in Chinese authoritarianism.”
Failure to follow the official line has consequences. The Chinese newspaper Global Times said that a “netizen” had discovered Marriott’s survey and was calling for a boycott of the company. A China National Tourism Administration official was quoted by Xinhua, the state news agency, as saying no activities that challenge China’s “legal red lines” would be permitted.
“We welcome foreign corporations’ investment and operation in China,” Lu Kang, a spokesperson for the ministry of foreign affairs, said at a press briefing last week, according
This is a huge mistake, probably one of the biggest in my career,” Craig Smith, president and managing director of Marriott’s AsiaPacific office
to the Financial Times. “Meanwhile, they should abide by China’s laws and respect Chinese people’s national feelings.”
Marriott, which has been aggressively expanding in China in recent years, says it is implementing an “eightpoint rectification plan” to prevent future mishaps. The word rectification carries extra significance in China because Mao Zedong used rectification campaigns to consolidate his hold on the Chinese Communist Party and indoctrinate its members.
The company also took down the survey “immediately,” terminated the contract with the Canadian firm that wrote the survey and initiated a review of all of its materials, including its web sites, according to a company spokeswoman. The Bethesdabased hotelier is also taking disciplinary action against the US-based employee who used a corporate Twitter account to “like” a post supporting Tibetan independence from China.
“To regain confidence and trust, the first thing is to admit the mistake, then fix it, and it would come back slowly as we prove we really mean what we say,” Smith, who’s worked for Marriott for 30 years, was quoted as saying in the state- owned China Daily.
A number of major companies, including Apple and Audi, have acquiesced to China’s censorship laws and other demands in recent years, experts said. Apple last year removed more than 670 apps, including messaging apps like Skype and virtual private networks, which would allow users to bypass governmentimposed firewalls, from its Chinese app store.
Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook has talked about the importance of China’s market to Apple’s business strategy and its determination to stay there. “We believe in engaging with governments even when we disagree,” he said in August.
He travelled to China in December, and appeared at China’s World Internet Conference. “The theme of this conference - developing a digital economy for openness and shared benefits - is a vision we at Apple share,” Cook said there. “We are proud to have worked alongside many of our partners in China to help build a community that will join a common future in cyberspace.”
As for other tech giants, Google’s search engine and Facebook’s social-media platform have been cordoned off from Chinese customers. — WPBloomberg