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China’s massive expansion over the past three decades has made for tremendous international as well as domestic ramifications. So far there has been stability in this economic growth, but it’s hard to know if that will last with the proliferation of social unrest, inflation and various other internal fissures.
“We are now in the youth of our development in the markets with China,” said Feng Lun, Chairman, Vantone Holdings Company. “Just like a child whose muscle, bone and thinking is imbalanced as it grows, we are working towards maturity and towards hope.”
[In China], we say at someone’s funeral, during the eulogy, we know what kind of model that person provided, or why a person or nation was most successful, added Feng.
Over the past two or three decades, state-owned enterprises have slowly held less dominance as the private sector becomes stronger, making for a crop of “hybrid” companies in China, but it’s an ongoing issue that’s “very complex,” said Feng.
“From my personal perspective right now controls are still needed but there are various contradictions within China,” said Wang Shi, Chairman of China Vanke Company. He went on to describe the tension between state-owned and private enterprises, differences between urban and rural lifestyles, saying that China still sacrifices the rural population, at times pushing them off land in order for it to be better use to developers, and the pull between central planning and organic local growth.
Wang added that China’s labor would not be as cheap as before, making for room for more change it the country’s economy.
“We have room to improve,” said Wang. “This is why having MBA students coming in is important, because they understand that we need to be transparent, and have a clear growth path and we need to explain our company,” to the outside world.
Meanwhile, social unrest continues to play a role politically and economically. “We have some social problems,” said Liang Xinjun, Vice Chairman and CEO Fosun International. “The result is that society is transforming and looking at problems.”
At the same time, while it was once the norm for China’s top students to vie for jobs in multinational corporations and now Chinese companies are becoming more attractive,” said Klaus Kleinfeld, Chairman and CEO of Alcoa.
“For those that are not in this business: the Chinese demand makes up for about 40 percent of the world’s demand in aluminum,” said Kleinfeld. “The growth rate of the world’s aluminum market was 13 percent last year, this year we believe 12 percent, and we believe the world’s market will double in the next ten years until 2020.”
