China Kevin&Curry&Dwayne Geographic and Political Factors ● East Asia ● Climate: In northeast, the summers are hot and dry and the winters are freezing cold. The north and central regions have frequent bouts of rain coupled with hot summers and cold winter. ● Methods of transportation: Cars(In the late 1980s, China had more than 140,000 highway bridges.Their length totaled almost 4,000 kilometers.), taxis, bicycles, buses, trains and planes. Especially China has the fastest train in the whole world( 410 km per hour) ● Natural resources in china: China is the leader in mining gold, zinc, lead,molybdenum, iron ore, coal, tin, tungsten, rare earths, graphite, vanadium, antimony and phosphate, and holds second place in mine production of copper, silver, cobalt, bauxite/alumina and manganese. ● Natural hazards: frequent typhoon( about five per year along southern and eastern coasts), damaging flood, earthquake and droughts( a large area of northern part of china) ● Political System: China is a socialist republic run by a single party, the Communist Party of China, which is headed by General Secretary. The regime of the People’s Republic of China implements the system of people’s congress in accordance with the constitution of the People’s Republic of China. The National People’s Congress is the highest organ of state power, implementing democratic centralism. Economic Factors ● Economic system and state of economic stability: taking the public ownership economy as the main body, and economies of multiple ownership develop jointly. The economic stability of China has improved dramatically because the economic growth in China has remained in the range of 6.7% to 6.9% for 8 consecutive quarters. ● The currency of China named Ren Min Bi (RMB) or China Yuan. The people’s bank of China is the competent authority of China in charge of the management of RMB and responsible for the design, printing and distribution of RMB. ● Major exports: mechanical and electrical products, high tech products, clothing, textiles, footwear, furniture, plastic products and ceramic, motors and generators and integrated circuits. Major imports: crude oil($220.7 billion), iron ore ($95.6 billion), plastics in primary forms ($46.2 billion), copper and copper alloys ($38.6 billion), and soybeans ($35 billion). ● Trading partners: European Union, ASEAN, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. ● Membership of trading blocs: the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA), is a free trade area among the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the People’s Republic of China. ● Important industries: Major industries include mining and more processing; iron and steel; aluminum; coal; machinery; armaments; textiles and apparel; petroleum; cement; chemical; fertilizers; food processing; automobiles and other transportation equipment including rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft ● Labour pool: from 1980 to 2005, China’s total labor force increased from 503 million to 767 million with an average annual increase of about 10 million. On the contrary, from 2005 to nowadays, the national labor force experienced a significant decline, with an average annual decline of 1%. Level of education: China has a 99% attendance rate for primary school. Under China’s “Law on NineYear Compulsory Education”, primary school is tuition-free. However, students must pay a small tuition fee after the compulsory nine years of education during middle and high school. ● Foreign direct investment: foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland rose 7.9 percent year-on-year to 877.56 billion yuan ($136.33 billion). ● Capital Income Tax: After deductions, the standard rate for capital income tax in China is 20%. Business Tax: Businesses in China are subject to a host of taxes, from corporate income tax to capital gains tax, but basic business tax in China ranges from 3%-20%. Value Added Tax: the VAT rate applicable to the supply of certain goods and service is 16% and 10% respectively. ● Business Costs:if people want to open a new company in China, they normally need to spend approximately 10,000 China Yuan totally to set up the company. They need to pay for the stamp carving and various taxation such added value tax, business tax and so on. And they also need to open account for many different things. Culture Factors ● Languages: More than 70% of the Chinese population speaks Mandarin, but there are also several other languages, for example: Cantonese or other nation languages. ● Religions: There are five religions in China which the governments formally recognises, that is Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism ● Ethnic Groups: Han Chinese 91.9%, Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and various other nationalities 8.1%. ● Food: Chinese cuisine plays an important role of the Chinese culture, which includes all the cuisine that originating all over China and the Chinese people which live in abroad. Modern “Eight Cuisines” are Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang cuisines. ● Cultural events:Chinese New Year, Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese Dragon Boat Festival and so on ● Negotiating style: In China, it is very important to build trust between two side. Chinese always take a long time to prepare the mee, like to know the situation of your partner’s company. When foreign partners are doing business with chinese, they need for quick settlement on specific issues and contract terms with the slower-paced and seemingly abstract building of interpersonal relationships. ● Gestures: China has many of gestures during people are talking, because it can substitute some words in our daily talk. For example, we have ten different finger gestures to show the numbers from 110. ● Forms of greeting: when chinese meet their normal friends, handshake and nodding with a polite smile are the best way to show the respect to them. Sometimes, when you are meeting your close friend, you can give them a friendly hug or a back-slapping to show the close relationship with them. When we are doing business with chinese, a handshake is the most common way to show the politeness. ● Style of dress: In modern society, when chinese people are at the formal occasion, men will wear something decent, like suit. For women, they prefer to wear skirt and Cheong-sam. If you wear indecent clothes, it can make your dignity lost. At some informal occasion, people fan wear anything they like. ● Gift giving: presenting gift in china, we always use two hands to give the gift. The receiving person has to refuse the gift for three times to show the comity and respect. If you receive the gift directly, it is very rude and impolite. The value of the gift is depends on how important the receiving person is. ● Punctuality: Being late is a serious offence in the Chinese business culture. Even at the daily life, being late is very rude and disrespectful to other people. For instance, when you have a date with your girlfriend, but if you came late, your girlfriend will definitely get mad, so far as to broke up. ● Scheduling meetings: before the meeting, Chinese people will get all information about their partners, like who is their boss, what is their purpose or goal. Chinese people always have meeting at afternoon, because they can have dinner together after the meeting. Chinese people like ate and negotiate at the same time. ● Business entertaining: when Chinese are doing business, they will have lunch or dinner together with their cooperator. The host will order a large amount of food to show their enthusiasm. If the host only order a little for the guest, it would be a lot of shame on the host.