beyondbrics

On Monday, China’s commerce minister, Chen Deming, wrote an op-ed in the FT entitled “Thriving China is ever more open for business”. The article sought to allay foreign companies’ fears that the business climate in China is becoming more hostile.

But on the very same day, the Chinese government rejected an application from Mark Clifford, executive director of Asia Business Council, an independent and influential business group, to travel to China under the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) Business Travel Card arrangement.

Under the Apec scheme, businessmen can travel visa-free, by first applying for a travel card and then applying individually to specific countries. Clifford applied to all twelve participating countries – eleven approved his application, but China rejected it.

A Hong Kong immigration officer told Clifford that many Apec business travellers have recently been rejected by China.

“Given that the Apec Business Travel Card arrangement is, as its name implies, explicitly designed to facilitate business travel, Mr Chen’s assurances that ‘China remains open for business’ need to be measured against reality,” Clifford wrote to the FT.

The Chinese rejection caused Clifford to delay a business trip to Beijing. Clifford said he was surprised, given he has held an Apec Business Travel Card for the last three years.

This episode suggests Beijing may have decided to throw up opaque and arbitrary barriers again at its borders, as it has done previously at sensitive times such as the 2008 Olympics and last year’s national-day celebration.

But even if China is once again trying to screen out supposed undesirables – such as human rights activists, NGO volunteers or academic researchers – Clifford hardly fits the bill.

The chairman of the Asia Business Council, of which Clifford is executive director, is Qin Xiao, chairman of state-owned financial and transport conglomerate China Merchants Group.

The council also counts among its members Levin Zhu, CEO of China’ s biggest investment bank and son of former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, and Fu Chengyu, chairman and CEO of Cnooc, one of China’s three state-owned energy giants.

You could hardly find a more exclusive club outside the Communist Party of China itself.

The chairmen or CEOs of Novartis, Lafarge, Reliance Industries, Nomura Holdings, Philips, Saudi Aramco, Temasek, SK Holdings, Korea Exchange Bank, McKinsey & Co, Rolls Royce, KKR, Warburg Pincus and Ogilvy & Mather are all members as well.

Asked about Clifford’s case, a spokesperson at the Apec Business Travel Card department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing told the FT that China’s policy towards the visa-free cards has not changed.

She suggested Clifford was rejected because of unspecified “problems”, and went on to point out that, of the 21 members of Apec, Russia, Canada and the US have yet to sign up fully to the Business Travel Card agreement.

“We have the right to reject any application we want,” the spokesperson said. “Many Chinese are rejected by the US and stopped from travelling there but do they give us any explanation?”

Such words are likely to revive any fears allayed by commerce minister Chen’s article.

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