I was six months into my job as ZTE USA’s general counselor when I realized I was being groomed.
I was 40 years old at the time, and ZTE, one of the largest telecom equipment manufacturers in the world, had offered me my dream job. While I was qualified for the job — ZTE hired me away from its rival Huawei, where I was an assistant General Counselor in its Texas office — ZTE also saw me for what I was: a young lawyer who was hungry. They thought I’d be so smitten with the idea of being offered a top dog position that I’d gladly play the happy idiot for them. And you know what? They were kind of right.
The red flags were certainly there. I just didn’t want to look at them. They had given me the title, “General Counsel,” that I had spent my whole career working towards. But what I didn’t realize was that to them, it was merely a title; really, I was just another worker bee for the Queen Bee back at ZTE’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China.
And ZTE’s headquarte
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
When Ken Wilcox, a former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, moved to Shanghai in 2011, he was optimistic and eager to start up the bank's new joint venture in China. A decade later, however, he is extremely cynical about U.S. business interests in China. While analysts will, rightly, be debating SVB's missteps in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, Wilcox insists the bank's challenges in China should not be overlooked.
The former secretary of state talks about how the Trump administration changed U.S.-China relations; why he accused Beijing of genocide in Xinjiang; and why U.S. politicians should visit Taiwan.
