US businesses are falling out of love with Xi’s Chinese dream

A US diplomat in Beijing once told me a story of an American businessman hospitalised in the city of Ningbo after being hit at the airport by an electric buggy that was ferrying a group of Chinese VIPs who were late for their flight. The authorities confiscated his passport, demanding he pay for the damage to the buggy before he could leave. The diplomat was outraged, but when he got to Ningbo to provide help, the businessman told him to go home, explaining that he wanted to pay the fine since he was on the cusp of a big deal and didn’t want to upset the authorities. To the diplomat it was just one more example of the indignities that businesspeople were prepared to put up with for a slice of the mythical China market.

The story came to mind when I saw the photograph Tuesday of President Xi Jinping with 20 American business leaders who had been summoned to the Great Hall of the People for what had been described as a meeting with a ‘top Chinese leader’.