09/07/2025
The three stages of Confucian engagement with non-Chinese entrepreneurs
1 Attract and elevate
2 Enable and extract core skills
3 Discard and move on
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In 2019, Elon Musk marvelled at his new Shanghai gigafactory and declared, “China is the future.”
Today, Tesla is learning a brutal lesson taught to a generation of foriegn-owned companies before it: China’s future may not include you.
Tesla is falling behind the very Chinese competitors it helped foster. And Musk’s value to Beijing has sunk,
To U.S. executives who have done business in China, this is a painfully familiar story.
Mark Duval, a former Motorola executive who spent 16 years on the front lines, has seen this before.
For the full story, please follow the link to the WSJ article