In practice, I've had a presence in China since 1998 with my commercial spaces and shops.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've been going to China every year now for more than a decade.
I had the interesting experience of having lived and worked for six years in China with Procter & Gamble, and that just changes, I think, your whole perspective in living overseas and living in a country like China.
Although I don't like the way the Chinese do business, I continue to do business in China. I have to. They're the next world power.
You have to be willing to totally immerse yourself in China in order to have in-depth exposure to China.
Once I became interested in China, I flew to Beijing in 1996 to spend half a year studying Mandarin. The city stunned me.
If you are only big in China, you are only a local Chinese company.
I have been to China. I noticed that wherever you went, you could ask an ordinary citizen, and he would explain, in detail, about free markets and all the other jargon of liberalisation.
Growing up in Singapore, I wasn't allowed to visit China. So when I was finally able to go there after the country began opening up to tourism in the 1990s, I found it to be utterly astounding.
I routinely make trips to China and India where we have offices to continue to maintain the linkages that are necessary to run a successful business.
China is an area where we need to be present. Lots of companies want to supply their products to China.
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