AZ China is registered in Hong Kong, and our office in Beijing is registered as a “Representative Office” under Chinese law.
Every year, we have to renew our business licence. For our HK licence, we pay the fee and it’s done within a day or so. Easy.
For our Beijing licence however, it is anything but. First, we had to get a bank statement. Our local bank refused, noticing that the rubber stamp on our document had stretched slightly, so that it no longer looked like the stamp they have had on file since 2007. We therefore had to go to a government bureau and plead for a new “chop” as it is called here.
Every year, we have to provide a statement from our bank to say that our account is in good order. Our main account is in a bank in Guangzhou. But this year, the government has decreed that they will no longer accept bank reference letters from inside China. The risk of fraudulent copies is apparently too great! No problem, I had to go to Hong Kong anyway, so while there I opened an account with a HK bank.
They happily provided me with a reference letter, but the letter said only that we had opened the account at the end of October. Nothing about having a good trading history, which is fair enough, since we had no history with that bank.
Today,we presented the reference letter to the Beijing authorities. They noted that there was no history statement, and rejected the letter. We showed them a letter from our Guangzhou branch, but that wasn’t acceptable either.
We tried arguing with them that it was their rules which caused us to have to switch banks, and that we cannot be expected to backdate history. That argument failed to move the girl behind the counter screen. It seemed we were stymied. Time to pack up and leave China.
But no. Our intrepid girl Lisha is Chinese, and knows how things work in China. She simply went to another counter, in the same room. She presented the same papers, explained the situation. No problem, the business licence has been renewed.
Only in China. Is it any wonder I have grey hair?
Not saying this sort of thing doesn’t happen all the time in China, but the “other window” bureaucratic phenomenon is certainly not limited to China. In fact, I am not aware of any country in the world where this is not also at least sometimes the case. Another well-worn solution is to simply wait a few days and try again.
True. One thing is for sure - throwing a tantrum definitely does not work. I speak from experience!
And again, that’s true everywhere. The bureaucrats hold ALL the power and even when they act arbitrarily (as they so often do), ours is to simply nod and walk away, to come back to fight another day.