Global businesses scramble to align with China’s world view

SYDNEY (Jan 17): Multinational businesses keen for a slice of the world’s fastest-growing consumer market are finding they have to increasingly conform to China’s world view if they want to stay in Beijing’s good graces.

Companies from  Marriott International Inc. to Qantas Airways Ltd. are scrambling to fall in line with China’s stance on the treatment of territorial disputes, or risk missing the biggest market opportunity some of them have ever known. In the past week, they have been checking the wording on websites and other material for references -- some of which have been in public view for years -- that might cause offense, while also offering apologies and acknowledgement of China’s sovereignty.

The state can quickly and easily punish defiant companies, said Stuart Orr, a professor at Deakin University’s faculty of business and law in Melbourne who has studied China for more than a decade. “I’m not aware of any industries that are so critical to China that China would feel the need to accommodate them,” Orr said. “I don’t think these companies really have a lot of leverage.”

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