Foreign companies in China feel weight of increasing political pressure
Beijing — In late July, executives from more than a dozen top European companies in China met in Beijing to discuss their concerns about the growing role of the ruling Communist Party in the local operations of foreign firms, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. President Xi Jinping’s efforts to strengthen the party’s role throughout Chinese society have reached the Chinese operations of foreign companies, and executives at some of those entities do not like the resulting demands they face. The presence of party units had long been a fact of doing business in China, where party organisations existed in nearly 70% of about 1.86-million privately owned companies, the official China Daily reported in July. Companies in China, including foreign firms, are required by law to establish a party organisation, a rule that had long been regarded by many executives as more symbolic than anything to worry about. One senior executive whose company was represented at the m...
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