By the year 2000, annual sales of computer products to China may well reach $15-18 billion, making China one of the largest computer markets in the world. At the same time, China's own computer industry is expected to become world-class and internationally competitive. How this will come about, the market and economic trends that are presently developing, and the opportunities they present for Western businesses are explored here by two insiders, offering not only useful analysis but hands-on guidance to the ways in which China's computer market works. With an appendix listing more than 500 of the most important Chinese computer companies, industrial and professional organizations, and related consulting and law firms, the book will be essential reading for computer industry management and top sales executives, and for investment bankers and others with important stakes in the China market.
China's computer market is not easy to enter. The key to doing so, according to the authors, is to understand not only China's unique historical, cultural, and environmental factors that condition the way business is done there, but the way Chinese businesspeople think and act. China is a low-income and transitional economy, much different from Japanese and other Asian economies, and incentives and price structures are distorted and the rules of the game are not clearly written. The legal infrastructure is incomplete, and laws are not rigorously enforced. Using the latest data available only from local Chinese sources, Zhang and Wang dissect the Chinese computer market in terms that Westerners can understand and relate to: its opportunities, but also its risks. Academics teaching and studying international business, marketing, and investment will also benefit from the authors' insights.
