A visit to China

Gary Topp - Chief Executive, Yorkshire Culture

Gary recently visited China with a delegation from the region including Yorkshire Forward, Yorkshire Culture and the Northern Ballet.

The visit, designed to strengthen ties between the Yorkshire and Humber region and the world’s most populous country, proved to be eye opening for all involved reinforcing the links between culture and business in what is soon to be the planet’s economic powerhouse. Reflections on a week in Beijing

Towards a context. Gary Topp

China is sparking the world’s imagination. It is compelling, baffling, worrying and deeply fascinating. Western businesses are crazily negotiating and determining to open up this enormous market- it offers both the cost savings of the third world and the potential for phenomenal growth through the emerging consumerism of its 1.4 billion people. In the week that we were there Google conceded its principles and launched Google.cn and on the flight back I had a detailed conversation with a leading mobile phone company’s ethical manager. He had spent two weeks in Beijing undertaking a strict ethical audit on proposed factories. He determined that the Chinese workers would be paid 50 cents (euro) an hour and sleep in dormitories with 2 square metres of personal space – apparently this is better than current minimum legal standards in China and will pass their test. Beijing is a city of 15 million people…up to half of them migrant workers from the country’s 800 million farmers.

S class Mercedes and 7 series BMWs rub shoulders with hundreds of thousands of more humble vehicles and the laconic cruising of the cities 10 million bicycles. Workers wave flags and blow whistles at every major traffic junction in a bizarre ritual of failed traffic control. Your eyes are gritty with smog and you soon develop the Beijing cough as you negotiate the city’s 172km by 160 km scale. B&Q and Ikea have major stores and virtually everyone from rich to poor lives in an apartment. You can get a mortgage, and finally, you can actually buy an AmericanEnglish style suburban house for circa £200,000.00.

One event dominates the cities skyline advertisements – Beijing 2008 Olympics. Beijing is revealing itself to the world through the Olympics. It reminded me of Los Angeles with freeways, pollution, dominant advertisements and a brutal two speed economy. A value supply chain model ? Yorkshire – UK – EU – China – Beijing- Culture. This is a challenging value/ supply chain to unravel. What did we learn on this first trip by way of an initial set of observations? Culture, particularly high culture, is fantastically important to the new Chinese elite- it has something of the ‘Victorian’ about it. UK culture has status in China. Mr. Yu (Deputy Director General- China National Tourism Administration) constantly referred to a Chinese/ UK ‘emotional’ state or relationship. This seemed to be based on a notion, as much as anything, of British manufacturing quality (ironically he talked about his cashmere coat!) that seemed vaguely mid 1900’s in origin (think Jaguar cars and British tailoring). Business and culture are natural bedfellows in China – more so than in the UK these days. It refers back to notions of patronage, pride, intellect and social status. Yorkshire’s UK cultural offer can build business relationships – it brings values, status, pleasure and etiquette to the party. It could be a significant part of the region’s calling card. Mr Yu was clear; clear in his facts and figures and clear in his view. Chinese people will come to the UK for the culture – specifically high arts and heritage. Our package tour should be London – York – Edinburgh. Our hotels must be at least 3 stars or above. Our brand should be a cultural one. Good shopping will be the necessary icing on the cake. Beijing 2008 will be enormous. Great tracts of the city are littered with cranes as entirely new facilities are built from the ground up. The media complex alone dwarfs any current development site in Yorkshire. They will green the city, tidy it, plump it up and stage a magnificent spectacle. Mr. Luzeng Song (Deputy Director General) is clear that they will top the medal table (‘leave some medals for us’). They are hungry for sports and events business. Delighted to host new sports events – better still if they bring new equipment and brand opportunities. He suggested that we should try to introduce cricket. Perhaps, at least, we could hold an exhibition match. Yorkshire County Cricket club, Leeds Met Carnegie…..there might be something in it. (I was delighted to meet the official that had arranged President Bush’s recent mountain bike ride with the Chinese national team!) China has, and readily builds, cultural facilities on a magnificent scale.

It has state of the art theatres, enormous museums and phenomenal heritage attractions. Our visit to the Great Wall was astounding as both a punter and a professional. Great Wall – York Minister. China is secular – Yorkshire’s world class religious heritage would be a powerful and fascinating draw for a country with a troubled history of Christian relationships. It would be a fascinating and dramatic story for Chinese visitors. Again, the insistent ‘emotional’ link that Mr Yu shared with us. He wanted to talk about the ‘problem’ – the Chinese wanted to visit the UK but the beaurocracy and prejudice exhibited by the UK was stopping it dead. Our visa arrangements were punitive and, in his informed and evidenced view, based on a misunderstanding that Chinese people would have any desire to desert their homecountry for ours as illegal immigrants. His message was blunt – sort it out now or the Chinese would look elsewhere. This is not a regional issue- but we could be a region that makes our voice heard on it. For his part he accepts that currently foreign tour operators cannot set up in China- it demands a joint venture approach. It seems that deregulation has not yet hit the tourism sector. Our opportunity To integrate our emerging business / inward investment activity with a vibrant cultural exchange programme- it could be our regional competitive edge. If we do it now, as we move towards Beijing 2008, we could bring together our cultural excellence, our Olympic London 2012 support and our inward investment strategies to deliver a strong thread linking Beijing and Yorkshire – worth a shot?