because the emperor and his representatives have always been above
the law, Chinese business must use the ‘‘backdoor.’’ Many Chinese
told me that ‘‘it is better to go to hell than go to a Chinese court.’’ The
English Star Chamber was the same before the Magna Carta. Fortu-
nately, the Chinese legal system has recently made advances toward
the rule of law for everyone.
Leadership in China is to be found at all levels of society and profits
enormously from past Chinese scholars’ works on the theories and
practices of convincing people to follow righteous opportunities,
while maintaining the overall cost-benefit ratios and keeping faith
with those who would sacrifice all for the good of the many.
The impact of Chinese theories of leadership can be found wherever
Han Chinese people live, and these theories are adapted to their local
situation. Strains of Chinese leadership theories can be found on every
continent and many islands, around the globe. ‘‘Confucianism’’ (today
a mixture of Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism with a Buddhist
flavor) can be found in its stronger forms in Taiwan and to a lesser
degree in Hong Kong. It was turned upside-down in mainland China
during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution by Chairman Mao,
but it recovered somewhat under Deng’s ‘‘open-door revolution.’’
However, under Deng’s revolution, the old values of the ancestral
village home have been replaced, for many young Chinese entrepre-
neurs, by personal self-interest, wealth, and power, all free of family
responsibility. For many of these business people, Confucianism is an
old superstition held by their ancestors, with little relevance to them.
In sum, mainland China is searching for a moral philosophy to bring
order and unity to a turbulent nation.
Chinese business is in search of leadership theories for the twenty-
first century that will be useful in developing leadership networks
that include people from other Eastern and Western countries. These
theories must help find the ‘‘true middle ground’’ between people from
vastly different cultures, so that they can truly bond cross-culturally.
Thousands of years of Chinese isolation with the objective of
remaining unstained by the ‘‘unclean outsiders’’ have not prepared
China’s children to deal with offers from many strange foreigners.
Hunkering down in one’s small Chinese family business may serve
the Confucian family, but it is not the answer needed in competing
with large multinational corporations, because large fish eat small fish
that cannot hide. The traditional Chinese family business, with some
Linking Chinese leadership theory and practice to the world 275