The China I Knew, the China That Is, and the China Yet to
Come
In 2000, if you were doing business in China, survival—let
alone success—required being there. In person. In the
factories. In the boardrooms. Because if you weren't, your
competitors were. China was booming, changing by the day, and for
foreign companies in China, not being on the ground meant missing
too much of the plot.
I made trip after trip to Shanghai, Beijing, and the industrial
heartlands—not because I had to, but because being physically
present was the only way to truly grasp what was unfolding.
Even though my firm had attorneys in China—mostly based in
Shanghai—I felt compelled to witness the changes firsthand,
to meet our clients face-to-face, and to build the kind of trust
that only comes with boots on the ground. That was the China of
growth, of energy, of chaos and possibility.
