I'm sure that few people outside China and Taiwan are well-versed in the muddled history between the two, which are joined by common ancestry but starkly separated by political systems. But it doesn't matter. All you need to know is that the concept of "One China" is equally important to both sides, for reasons that cannot be adequately explained in this limited space.
What's interesting is that Western countries also seem to believe in a single China. Most likely from benign ignorance, many Westerners consider China a homogenous entity. But the truth is that there is no "One China," and the sooner businesses understand that, the sooner they will make money (or more money) in this extremely diverse market.
Some Chinese like rice, some noodles; some love Chinese opera, others pop star Coco Lee. Shanghainese have a rep for haughtiness; Beijingers are considered a bit bellicose. Sound familiar? In the United States, it's pizza or pate, classic rock or hip-hop, laid-back San Franciscans or in-your-face New Yorkers.
For foreign businesses, there is a bare minimum of three Chinas: national, provincial and local-in other words, all the officials that need a certain level of attention or palm greasing to ensure that projects go through. (The same can be said of some American locales.)
For Chinese companies like Legend Computer, China is as varied as its provinces, with annual incomes and per capita contributions to the GDP ranging all over the map. This is a land where the sub-$500 PC can undoubtedly make inroads. But it is also the place where Intel sells the most Pentium 4s. That alone shows the diversity in spending power.
China is evolving fast, too. Although plenty of people are skeptical about the 7 percent to 8 percent economic growth rates that the government touts, there are other, real ways to measure growth. For instance, local engineering salaries are going up. It's still much cheaper to hire here-at least three times cheaper than in the United States-but the salary gap used to be even wider.
Another area of change is mobile-phone sales. Although Motorola and Nokia still control more than 50 percent of the market, Chinese manufacturers are coming on strong with lower-cost alternatives that sometimes are strikingly similar to the foreign models. The local versions are in demand in the lower-income regions outside the big cities. Last year, local manufacturers claimed less than 7 percent of the market. By last month, their share had increased to around 27 percent (30 percent, if you include CDMA).
One China? I don't think so.
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