Source:
Associated PressForeign companies say China is increasingly using discriminatory rules to reduce access to previously open areas of its economy and promote its technology industries, a U.S. business group said Friday, adding to rising complaints of worsening conditions for foreign investors....
The chamber highlighted complaints about efforts to nurture China's computer and other technology companies -- a policy dubbed ''indigenous innovation'' -- by favoring them in government procurement and other areas.
American companies are ''troubled by a mounting number of policy challenges ranging from the inconsistent enforcement of laws, to China's discriminatory domestic innovation policies and regulations that limit market access into sectors that had been increasingly open to foreign investment for the past 30 years,'' the group said in an annual report on business conditions.
The report said a survey of 388 companies found for the first time that inconsistent regulation has become the most significant challenge faced by American companies in China. Previously they cited trouble finding enough Chinese managers as their biggest problem.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/01/world/AP-AS-China-Foreign-Business.html?_r=1&ref=news
I'd say Google did the right thing by folding in the no win game the Chinese play. I predict they will allow a select few US companies to make a decent profit, while they clamp down on the vast majority of us trying to do business in China. And then they will put the squeeze on the select few.
Some lifetimes ago when I was in international business, the rule was always leave yourself an out that would not cost you. Time to fold'em in China.