What mindset and attitude should foreign companies in China adopt today?

Ask AI · What are the key factors for telling China’s story well to headquarters?

As a veteran foreign-company professional from more than twenty years ago, I truly feel that our generation is fortunate—we genuinely benefited from the most substantial dividends of the first three decades of Reform and Opening up.

In recent years, I have personally witnessed the full process of foreign companies in China moving from being mythologized and looked up to—representing the most advanced productive forces and a more advanced way of life—to slowly stepping down from their pedestal, being treated as equals by local enterprises, and even being scrutinized rigorously under a complex macro context.

This is an inevitable process of the era, and also a marker of market maturity. Through this essay, and with colleagues who are still奋斗 within foreign-company systems, or who are still collaborating with multinational institutions and serving the domestic market, I want to share: when the direction of the tide changes, what kind of new posture should we adopt to create value in the China market.

Abandon the mindset of “looking down from a higher dimension”

Foreign-company people from the old era often came with a halo of being “higher-dimensional.” We used to represent superior product technology, a higher level of management cognition, and stronger brand momentum. When facing the China market, everyone’s mindset was generally “energy potential released”—back then, when Oracle and IBM first entered China, even local customers needed to do reverse work, pull strings, and coordinate just to obtain a license (License) or a piece of equipment.

But today, arrogant capital is already gone. Foreign-company giants suddenly realized that what they were facing was no longer just a one-way export market, but a set of local competitors who have the engineer talent advantage, the supply-chain advantage, and extremely capable “involution” innovation skills. When local products start to take the lead across various sub-sectors, if foreign companies still keep their “enlightener” posture, they are bound to be quickly marginalized.

Put on a sincere posture of “rooting in and living together”

At the annual China Development High-Level Forum, multinational CEOs always put “localization 3.0” and “ecosystem co-building” on their lips. Polished phrases seem as if they have been proofread by policy documents. But in the medical sector I’m familiar with, the real business battlefield is extremely brutal—it’s facing off at the negotiation table of centralized procurement, it’s fighting over hospital purchase orders in second- and third-tier cities, and even companies making a decisive exit from the China market with a flick of the sleeve.

Rather than be replaced by rapidly advancing local enterprises, it’s better to invest, to incubate, and to bind deeply. Foreign companies should no longer talk grandly about “leading China,” but must learn how to “dance alongside China’s innovation,” bringing potential rivals into their own value network.

In plain terms, if you can’t get the “ID” for the China market, you won’t get the entry pass for the next decade. “Rooting in and living together” today must not be merely a public-relations slogan, but should be reflected more as defensive cooperation.

This image is AI-generated

Tell the “China story” well to headquarters

Today, the biggest drain on many China-region executives’ energy is actually communication—turning inward and upward. We often wonder: why do Indian executives thrive within multinational systems? Leaving aside language advantages, the core is that they understand “Frame/packaging” better, and they’re more skilled at telling stories. They can take business progress that we see as perfectly ordinary and package it into strategic narratives that fit the global context—extremely compelling and enticing. This is the capability we urgently need to make up for.

We must upgrade our communication strategy so that headquarters of global enterprises keeps “three hearts” toward the China market: patience, confidence, and—most importantly—favoritism.

Patience is what enables headquarters to understand and accept the pain of China’s economic cycle transition period;

Confidence is what proves to headquarters that China is not only a cost center and a sales market, but also a “pressure-testing ground” that forces innovation and gives back to the globe;

Favoritism is the higher-level demand. It means we must persuade headquarters to treat China as a completely unique individual market—an isolated “sandbox” that shares resources with the world but develops independently. We must never use a one-size-fits-all global template to fit China.

The China market needs to obtain genuine special authorization: unique product-solution strategies, independent growth expectations, and tailor-made partner and channel strategies. Whether it’s the healthy life and wellness industry or other technology tracks, the underlying logic of business has already changed.

The survival posture of foreign companies in China is, in essence, to maintain the minimum level of certainty in a market with extremely high uncertainty—using the greatest strategic flexibility. Foreign companies can no longer pursue “de-involving” themselves with higher-dimensionality; instead, they should learn to coexist. They should no longer be only an output provider, but learn to take in inputs. They should no longer just play the role of mentor, but become true partners for the China market. This is both respect for the China market and the survival posture we most need to have in the new-era cycle.

**** Author Zhang Kun｜Submission to****ugao99999********