Tim Clissold's book 'Mr China' is a view of the trenches in China, which shows that at least one expat out there earned his salary in full.
Parts of the book are predictable: coming to Asia as a young man, falling in love with the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong and the mainland, struggling to learn the language etc.
What makes this book special are three set pieces. These are terrific accounts of three mammoth battles Clissold and his slightly manic investment banking partner 'Pat' (in real life Jack Perkowski, founder, CEO and Chairman of Asimco, an automobile components business) have with the locals.
Clissold has earned his bragging rights. I have rarely read a business story as riveting as this one. Most books on China are written by journalists, academics and other types of professional 'watchers'. It's very rare to get a good account of what goes on at the sharp end.
Throughout the chaos and the pressure, Clissold keeps his cool in true English style, although he must have felt a bit like the captain of the Titanic as hundreds of millions of dollars were ripped off by dishonest managers, joint venture partners sabotaging the joint venture in order to go it alone and businesses being sold off at a loss.
Clissold was in China at the right time to surf one of the periodic China frenzies. Having resigned from his London accounting firm because they wouldn't send him to China, he returned for some challenging language study in Beijing in 1990. Not long after the Tiananmen Massacre, conditions were pretty glacial, both in terms of his accommodation and in terms of the business climate.
Still, he persevered and after two years study found himself back at his old accounting firm as the China expert, responsible for introducing foreign investors to local projects. But things didn't really start firing on all cylinders until he teamed up to found a new private equity business with a wealthy Wall Street banker, Perowski.
His relationship with Americans is as complex as the Chinese. It is his partner Jack Perowski who seems to have crowned himself with the moniker Mr China. He was the dominant partner and the one responsible for a number of egregious errors, including handing over power of attorney to a senior employee who siphoned off millions of dollars, but left the company liable thanks to Perkowski's action. He also could have defused a huge row with another joint venture partner by compromising over a small jack factory, but refused, writes Clissold.
Some of the funniest bits are Clissold's observations on his way to the much-dreaded board meetings with investors. The disconnect between the chaos on the ground in China and boardroom expectations is well drawn, as are Clissold's foxy efforts at keeping the worst news for when the fund managers are gorging on breakfast danishes and fragrant coffee.
Yet there is a grim side to these China adventures, although Clissold generally does a good job in minimizing it. In fact, he does such a good job one wonders whether he deliberately wrote the book long after the event to give it a less serious tone.
But the dangers were real.
During one dispute, he implies that it is possible that one of his senior female employees was raped by workers. He himself is locked up for nine hours and screamed at in a separate conflict when he tries to fire the patently dishonest manager of a joint venture.
In some ways, you see Clissold toughening up before your eyes. At the beginning he is all sweet reason, but by the end of the book he is meeting fire with fire - and launching well-planned efforts to ensure fired managers don't wreck machinery or transfer millions of dollars out of the factory in a last burst of plunder.
Clissold ends the book on an almost elegiac note.
"If by writing this book, I can make the Chinese people seem more human, less mysterious, just flawed and beautiful like us, then the troubles of the past ten years will all have been worthwhile."
Then again, if he had succeeded there would be little fun in reading the book. Even after several re-readings one has to marvel at the huge gulf in business cultures. Take Clissold himself. He can operate as the disburser of half a billion dollars thanks to Western business ethics and an efficient legal system. But handing over a fraction of these amounts seemed like free money for many early partners. The other striking thing is how extreme the situation could get. Despite being dishonest, despite knowing it couldn't go on for ever, managers caught red-handed would fight to the bitter end - in one case, by simply refusing to leave the factory after being fired and splitting the workers into competing factions. At the end of the day, it was of course the factory which suffered.
Yet Clissold encountered his share of local heroes too. Above all, the book is a tribute to them: The MIT PHD Li Wei, an expert on Chinese networking; The General, who never let them down when seeking help at the highest government levels; Chang Longwei, his hard-as-nails manager who single handedly takes on a whole plant - all these go to show that the single most important decision you will make in China is who you choose as your brother-in-arms.
