China's modernization is all too often misinterpreted as Westernization. While the media coverage on China fluctuates between fascination and fear and the mistakes of foreign market players continue, a comparison of corporate influence and success factors from Imperial China to the present shows that key features remain unchanged. Accordingly, economic success can also be planned in China.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Harro of Senger

Incl. 36 illustrations, including rare historical ad motifs from archives of European companies.

Peter Lang, 2010, 219 p., illustrated, available both as print edition and eBook

In Rome, do as the Romans do. This old saying is as true today as it was hundreds of years ago. And as expected, it is true when embarking on ventures into the Chinese marketplace. Globalization of business and success in the local market is no contradiction but the one is a precondition of the other. China is no exception. The company understands the intricacies and emotions, preferences, beliefs, relationships and networks while preserving their identities and value core. Dr Tank gives well-chosen examples of successes and failures and methods and tools which were used by our predecessors and who can still give guidance in China. Thank you for this insightful work.

Any work for us Europeans in China happens, as the author rightly and vividly illustrates, in the field of tension of two important and self-confident cultures. This tension, or the differences as an incentive for a differentiated action, is one of the major challenges to make entrepreneurial activities in China successful. The findings of the present work confirm that a cosmopolitan attitude without Western arrogance, reasonable respect and decency, as required by strangers worldwide should be the foundation of our actions in China. Then we come to offers that suit this culture and good entrepreneurial achievements. Think global, act local is currently and nowhere else more demanding than in China.

Dr. Tank describes impressively and with many examples that a company / brand must specifically target the Chinese market. Only a copy of the Western success model is not enough. For further development, it is important to adapt the company and brand correctly to the changing conditions in society, markets and customer needs in order to achieve sustainable success. The aspired modernization in China does not strive for Westernization, but seeks its own, Chinese way. The examples listed from the historical point of view indicate that this earlier already crucial characteristic for success applies unchanged also today.

When it comes to China, the 'strangers' seem to lose all measure and judgment, and all effort ends in failure and incomprehension. But with his impressive, profound and where necessary provocative study, Dr. Tank highlights that this does not necessarily need to be the case. The book should be read carefully by anyone working in the China business. After all, success can obviously also be planned in China.

'China - a field of tension between fascination and fear'. Dr. Dr. Andreas Tank shows in his work that this applies today as it did during the imperial era. He gives many examples that impressively demonstrate the parallels for successful marketing strategies then and now. He makes it clear that an understanding of cultures is imperative. With China's growing position as a global economic power, the importance of sinology will increase significantly for many companies. If you see China as a 'second home market' and localize your product and market strategies accordingly, you will be able to successfully enter a large growth market. Dr. Dr. Tank provides many scientifically founded vivid ideas.

The idea of ​​drawing a parallel between the entrepreneurial development of the Chinese market before 1949 and since 1978 is a novelty. For the first time, this research topic enables us to identify long-term success factors in the China business over a period of several centuries. Especially fascinating are the insights into the archives of companies that were and are active both in the times of the empire and nowadays in China. The inferences demand the verification of today's strategies and methods!

Valuable look into the past. If you want to be successful in China, you do not just have to learn to understand China in all its facets (which is far more than just linguistic communication). It is also worth to look back to the past. To deal with the history of German-Chinese economic relations not only widens the view of a market that is generally defined as difficult and complicated, but also helps to avoid old mistakes (some of which were committed 100 years ago in the same way today is often the case) and to develop strategies that lead to economic success.

One of the merits of the manuscript is that the - albeit not total, but sometimes given - otherness of Chinese culture is perceived and in terms of trade relations is mentally processed to concrete and consistently worthy advice. This advice includes, among other things, the choice of the Chinese name of a foreign company, the design of the packaging of a foreign product, even the concept of the product, which often has to be adapted to China. The valuable tips are often illustrated with rare pictures. The author, who has a variety of personal business experiences in the Middle Kingdom, has the expertise to comment critically even luminaries such as Hofstede. The book is highly recommended especially for China trade practitioners.

Exploring, building and serving new markets has made Europeans into what they are today. However, with great courage, people are always exploring the limits of their knowledge and skills all over the world. That's the thing of the people, no matter where. That is the driving force of entrepreneurship in China too. There is always a lot at stake, often enough the whole company. But since the opening up of modern China, perhaps the greatest danger is to risk the total loss of cultural peculiarity, even the identity of the Chinese at the moment of the emergence and penetration of the Other, even as commodities. The foreign market player, who wants to sell and sell his commodity in the Chinese market, presumably penetrates deeper into this country, into this culture and into the souls of the people, than any warlike conqueror would ever have succeeded in doing. Andreas Tank shows this with his wonderfully far-reaching work in its historical and economic dimensions and shows the reader what the economy is doing: it conquers, albeit without cannons. That this does not always go without harm to the foreign market participants, especially when the preparation and the basic attitude to the new is not sufficient - sounding and world-famous names not excluded - shows Andreas Tank on many levels with a great cultural and economic competence. With bravura and a terrifying naivety, many have lost their market opportunities in the fertile fields of China. The author prefers the mirror, us - the omnipotent economists, arithmetic and word artists. His great achievement is that Andreas Tank does not shy away from revealing in us the logic of insincerability, the fallacy of lack of empathy. But Andreas Tanks investigations offer us solutions that enable us to do both: to make our commodity world known in China and to profitably serve the Chinese markets with our products, while at the same time preserving the Chinese feeling in dealing with our goods, with our own, to take into account the very different world that invented and manufactured these goods. Only when we succeed in what Andreas Tank proposes to us, namely to accept diversity and uniqueness of this culture in our market access strategy, only then we no longer make ourselves the ally of the final extinction of Chinese culture, that still self-confidently determines one of the last independent and closed markets in the world. Conversely, when, one day, cultural diversity in the world is lost to us - and that includes the commodity world, and how we treat it - we lose any chance of distance and renewal. This applies to our culture as a whole as well as to the parts of it, the economy, the technology, the development of our products, how and with what kind of efforts we make them and how we communicate them. This is always the spell of the stranger, who always wavers between promise and menace, happiness and tragedy, just fascination and fear. Here is the element driving us as an entrepreneur, which we would rather enrich, through a deeper and at the same time freer, playful view of the Chinese market, as Andreas Tank opens us in this exciting book.

History is the best early warning system I know, and nowhere else needed more than in China, where we barbarians are trying to conduct business with the eldest continuous civilization in the world. Dr. Tank's work is very important for us to see patterns in business and in the social fabric.