The Matt Schivenza blog has a new post, Foreign Woman Removes Top At Beach in Qingdao, Causes Major Disturbance. [link no longer exists].
Matt’s post tracks what I was talking about this morning with a client: not nudity, but rule of law, and how foreigners that do business in China often misunderstand misperceive what China is really like.
The client with whom I was having this discussion is a successful and sophisticated international businessperson who has been doing business in China for around five years. He was telling me of how a Spain-based competitor of his had gotten into legal troubles and was on the verge of pulling out of China. My client thought his competitor had caused its own problems by believing they could get away with not following Chinese law. We then talked about how China’s business laws — especially those that impact foreign companies in China — are mostly well-written, and foreign companies that abide by them are usually insulated from China legal problems.
Which all brings me back to nudity and to Matt’s post.
Matt’s post is on a Qingdao newspaper article about the reaction to a Bulgarian blonde who insisted on running around topless in the middle of a hot day at Qingdao’s most popular beach. The topless Bulgarian caused quite a stir, and gave rise to a local newspaper article, which Matt translated.
The article noted how despite the controversy, the lack of any law clearly prohibiting the conduct precluded anyone stopping to it:
This reporter went to the beach management office and was told, “There’s nothing we can do about it, and because no clear law exists prohibiting this sort of behavior, beach employees could not intervene.”
Matt sees all this as proof of the rule of law in China:
I find this story interesting because rather than compel the woman to put her top back on, the beach officials were prevented from doing so due to the absence of a clear legal statute. In other words, China is a nation that respects the rule of law.
To a certain extent, I agree. This does not prove China allows for freedom of political expression, and this does not prove Chinese bureaucrats do not sometimes act thuggishly, but this does prove China has laws that are followed.
