Corporate kowtowing fails to deliver
Monday, 11 February 2008
Mure Dickie while reviewing the book, Rupert's Adventures in China
AMEMORABLE scene in Bruce Dover's lively account of Rupert Murdoch's China misadventures involves the News Corp chairman wandering hopelessly lost in rainy Hong Kong after the British colony's midnight return to Beijing rule on July 1 1997. When a soaking and dishevelled Mr Murdoch finally finds his posh hotel, where colleagues are enjoying a $320-a-head party, unimpressed security guards refuse him entry.
The anecdote offers a decent metaphor for Mr Murdoch's business experience in China, a news and entertainment market of surpassing allure but one where the greatest media baron of our day has never appeared to find his way.
Mr Dover -- Mr Murdoch's point man in China for most of the 1990s - was able to usher his boss through hotel security that night. But getting him past the leaders who guard China's market was a different matter.
The Communist party has always been convinced that its grip on power depends in large part on control of the media - something Mr Murdoch found out only after his expensive acquisition of the Asian broadcaster Star TV. The News Corp chairman himself fuelled Beijing's concerns about the impact of foreign involvement in the sector in 1993, when he dubbed new technologies such as satellite television "an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes".
Mr Murdoch's resulting efforts to get back into the party's good graces exposed him to widespread condemnation when he barred the BBC from his satellite TV platform and forced subordinates to drop a book by the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten.
Critics - who include journalists on News Corp's newly acquired Wall Street Journal - will not be mollified by Mr Dover's account. He says Mr Murdoch did not try to block critical reporting by News Corp journalists but also acknowledges that his boss was not above suggesting that they should also cover "positive aspects" of China's rise.
Sceptics will see such an injunction as highly suspect, given what Mr Dover calls a culture of "anticipatory compliance" among executives and editors in the Murdoch empire. "One didn't need to be instructed about what to do, one simply knew what was in one's long-term interests," he writes.
News Corp also appears content to be seen by Chinese leaders as willing to trim its sails to prevailing political winds. Keen to promote Mr Murdoch's rehabilitation, Mr Dover seized the opportunity presented by the departure from The Times of a correspondent known for his critical reporting on China. "It was another offering we could make to our masters in Beijing - a head on a platter, and one gratefully received," he writes.
This book is valuable in illuminating the extent of such corporate kowtowing and is an object lesson to business-people in China of the risks and limits of any strategy that relies on cultivating and retaining the favour of party officials. But Mr Dover's account is marred by a lack of clear sourcing. The mixing of personal knowledge and second-hand reporting undermines, in particular, his account of the period after 2000, when he was no longer working for News Corp.
Still, Mr Murdoch's rivals and critics will no doubt relish the recounting of Beijing's sometimes humorous humbling of the media magnate. Zhu Rongji, later China's premier, once even playfully inquired if Mr Murdoch would be willing to take Chinese citizenship to win access to the market.
The News Corp chairman can give as good as he gets. In 1997, Mr Dover says, Mr Murdoch was so outraged by his Beijing hotel's mark-up on a $10 wine that he sent it back undrunk. That evening, however, he casually ordered a $3,500 bottle of Australian red at a Chinese host's expense.
Usually, however, it has been News Corp left with a hefty bill and little to show for it. Mr Murdoch's willingness to team up on generous terms with such partners as the Communist party's People's Daily newspaper has brought him only a marginal business in China. In 2006, Beijing banned a legally adventurous tie-up between Star TV and a regional Chinese broadcaster. Hopes that his Chinese third wife Wendi would open doors have so far been disappointed.
News Corp is hardly alone in playing courtier to Beijing for little gain, and optimists say the push by international media groups for access to China could bear fruit some day. But Mr Murdoch's appetite for the fight appears to be fading. His enthusiasm for China may have been undimmed by the soaking he got in Hong Kong a decade ago. But now, Mr Dover reckons, his China adventure is over.
...........................................
— FT Syndication Service
AMEMORABLE scene in Bruce Dover's lively account of Rupert Murdoch's China misadventures involves the News Corp chairman wandering hopelessly lost in rainy Hong Kong after the British colony's midnight return to Beijing rule on July 1 1997. When a soaking and dishevelled Mr Murdoch finally finds his posh hotel, where colleagues are enjoying a $320-a-head party, unimpressed security guards refuse him entry.
The anecdote offers a decent metaphor for Mr Murdoch's business experience in China, a news and entertainment market of surpassing allure but one where the greatest media baron of our day has never appeared to find his way.
Mr Dover -- Mr Murdoch's point man in China for most of the 1990s - was able to usher his boss through hotel security that night. But getting him past the leaders who guard China's market was a different matter.
The Communist party has always been convinced that its grip on power depends in large part on control of the media - something Mr Murdoch found out only after his expensive acquisition of the Asian broadcaster Star TV. The News Corp chairman himself fuelled Beijing's concerns about the impact of foreign involvement in the sector in 1993, when he dubbed new technologies such as satellite television "an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes".
Mr Murdoch's resulting efforts to get back into the party's good graces exposed him to widespread condemnation when he barred the BBC from his satellite TV platform and forced subordinates to drop a book by the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten.
Critics - who include journalists on News Corp's newly acquired Wall Street Journal - will not be mollified by Mr Dover's account. He says Mr Murdoch did not try to block critical reporting by News Corp journalists but also acknowledges that his boss was not above suggesting that they should also cover "positive aspects" of China's rise.
Sceptics will see such an injunction as highly suspect, given what Mr Dover calls a culture of "anticipatory compliance" among executives and editors in the Murdoch empire. "One didn't need to be instructed about what to do, one simply knew what was in one's long-term interests," he writes.
News Corp also appears content to be seen by Chinese leaders as willing to trim its sails to prevailing political winds. Keen to promote Mr Murdoch's rehabilitation, Mr Dover seized the opportunity presented by the departure from The Times of a correspondent known for his critical reporting on China. "It was another offering we could make to our masters in Beijing - a head on a platter, and one gratefully received," he writes.
This book is valuable in illuminating the extent of such corporate kowtowing and is an object lesson to business-people in China of the risks and limits of any strategy that relies on cultivating and retaining the favour of party officials. But Mr Dover's account is marred by a lack of clear sourcing. The mixing of personal knowledge and second-hand reporting undermines, in particular, his account of the period after 2000, when he was no longer working for News Corp.
Still, Mr Murdoch's rivals and critics will no doubt relish the recounting of Beijing's sometimes humorous humbling of the media magnate. Zhu Rongji, later China's premier, once even playfully inquired if Mr Murdoch would be willing to take Chinese citizenship to win access to the market.
The News Corp chairman can give as good as he gets. In 1997, Mr Dover says, Mr Murdoch was so outraged by his Beijing hotel's mark-up on a $10 wine that he sent it back undrunk. That evening, however, he casually ordered a $3,500 bottle of Australian red at a Chinese host's expense.
Usually, however, it has been News Corp left with a hefty bill and little to show for it. Mr Murdoch's willingness to team up on generous terms with such partners as the Communist party's People's Daily newspaper has brought him only a marginal business in China. In 2006, Beijing banned a legally adventurous tie-up between Star TV and a regional Chinese broadcaster. Hopes that his Chinese third wife Wendi would open doors have so far been disappointed.
News Corp is hardly alone in playing courtier to Beijing for little gain, and optimists say the push by international media groups for access to China could bear fruit some day. But Mr Murdoch's appetite for the fight appears to be fading. His enthusiasm for China may have been undimmed by the soaking he got in Hong Kong a decade ago. But now, Mr Dover reckons, his China adventure is over.
...........................................
— FT Syndication Service