Monday 30 October 2017

Foreign companies in China get a new partner: The Communist Party

Chinese President Xi Jinping, front row center, leads other cadres to raise their hands to show approval of work reports during the closing ceremony for the 19th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Photo: AP|PTI)

The 300 or so Communist Party members who work at Walt Disney Co’s theme park in China don’t keep their politics to themselves.

Many attend party lectures during business hours and display hammer-and-sickle insignia at their desks. Company newsletters and state media praise them as exemplary workers. Party officials help manage staff welfare and arrange activities such as political seminars for members and singing contests for all employees.

In June, Shanghai’s flagship party newspaper quoted Murray King, the resort’s Canadian vice president for public affairs, as saying its best employees are mostly party members. According to a Disney spokeswoman, Mr King actually said while some employees belong to the party, Disney doesn’t make that a requirement.

The compromises made by Western firms to do business in China are becoming increasingly uncomfortable now that President Xi Jinping is pushing to embed the Communist Party deeper into the world’s second-largest economy.

Mr Xi emerged from a recent party congress with five more years as leader and power comparable with that of Chairman Mao Zedong. One of his top priorities is to restore the party as a force in people’s lives and recapture its revolutionary sense of mission.

Under Mr Xi, the party has pushed to exert greater state control over the economy and rein in some market-oriented experiments of recent years. Chinese regulators recently proposed that the state take 1% stakes in major Chinese internet companies.
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