| | By Mick James
When the Olympic
torch passed through
London I decided not to
go out in the snow to
watch it. So I missed
all the excitement of
minor British celebs
running with the torch,
shielded by squads of
track-suited Chinese
officials against people
who kept leaping out of
the crowd with fire
extinguishers. Watching
the scenes on TV I
couldn't help feeling
that an important
political issue was
being reduced to farce.
If I was Tibetan, I'd
wonder what if China
hadn't won the Games.
Would we have had to
wait until they started
playing Test cricket
before we got a rise out
of the British?
Because it's as if we
are dealing with two
countries. On the one
hand there's China,
human rights, Tibet,
Tiananmen Square, tut,
tut. On the other hand
there's the place that
makes all our stuff.
It's too painful to try
to link them together.
So we – literally –
clutch at the straw that
is the Olympic torch, in
the hope we can kick off
the following process:
1. Olympic torch goes
out
2. Chinese regime
collapses in shame and
embarrassment
3. Democratic reforms
sweep China
4. Independent Tibet
There may be more | |
| |
| | the consulting and
outsourcing industry
years in advance.
I have to say I've
had my qualms. A few
years back I was working
at a conference hosted
by a major consultancy
where the guests of
honour where a number of
Chinese CEOs. "If you
run into anyone Chinese,
treat them like a rock
star" was the order of
the day. But each of
these people, all heads
of major concerns, had
to go through a
gruelling process just
to get permission to
leave their own country.
It felt wrong. People
reassured me that their
colleagues in China were
happy with their lives.
I responded that
middle-class conformists
are generally happy
everywhere.
But is there even an
ethical issue here?
Consultants aren't put
on this earth to be
moral arbiters, and
would probably make a
pretty poor fist of it
if they were. The
writing on the wall has
pretty much consisted of
a giant arrow pointing
East for some time now.
Clients are as
constrained by this
trend as the rest of us,
more so in fact. I can
always pay more for my
trousers if I want to.
For the modern
industrialist, China is
the modern equivalent of
the Bessemer converter –
it's effectively a new
technology for making
things more cheaply. You
ignore it at your peril | |
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| | and – critically – as
long as it can be
treated as a "black box”
that you don't have to
worry about what goes on
inside too much.
For those of us whose
politics were forged in
the Cold War the result
has been a tragic
disappointment. The
Soviet experience seemed
to prove that theory,
although, in retrospect,
Gorbachev was possibly
just working from the
same script as the rest
of us. Linked to this
was the belief that our
way of life in the West
was so deeply attractive
that others will be
drawn to it like moths
to a flame, that enough
Beatles albums and blue
jeans would sink any
dictatorship. That
doesn't seem to work any
more. But maybe there's
a reason for that.
Over a century ago
Mark Twain wrote a
controversial essay, "To
the Person Sitting in
Darkness",
(http://tinyurl.com/5cocx
b) in response to the
USA's actions against
"insurgents" in the
Philippines and the
subsequent annexation of
that country. It reads
as if it was written
yesterday, and in a way
it was. Globalisation
was in full swing back
then, only to be
postponed for a century
as attempts by rising
economic powers to claim
their political due led
to war. (But that could
never happen again,
right?).
Twain's point back | |
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| | then was that, as
attractive as our ideals
are on paper, we still
need to live up to them.
The container marked
"Blessings of
Civilisation – Export
Only" has to do what it
says on the tin.
Otherwise the "person
sitting in darkness" is
liable to get confused
about what's on offer.
So, in my view, we
should let consultants
off the hook over China.
It's down to the efforts
of consultants and
outsourcers after all
that places like China
are increasingly not
"black boxes", but are
more and more intimately
linked with us by global
business processes and
partnerships. What will
that level of engagement
bring? Even the most
innocuous conversations
with colleagues and
partners can have
political overtones.
It's really about what,
you, as an individual
representative of the
Blessings of
Civilisation Trust, have
to say for yourself.
Otherwise it’s:
"You let the ruling
party appoint your next
leader? Hey, so do we!
And I hear that in
America the guy with the
most votes gets to make
an award-winning
documentary about the
environment. Good
system!"
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