Dan Harris, a Seattle lawyer who works with foreign companies in China, said he has heard from an unusually large number of businesses in recent weeks looking for ways to reduce their presence in China without leaving the market altogether.
One of his clients, a U.S. furniture manufacturer, is working on a deal to distribute its products through a Chinese firm so it can remove its American employees from the country. A U.S. education company, also a client, is shutting its China units and licensing its technology to its current Chinese employees. He declined to offer more detail, because he advises clients not to discuss leaving China until they are gone.