Years of rapid economic growth and exposure to global competition are redrawing the boundaries of China's business landscape. In the past, most companies there fell into one of three categories: state-owned enterprises, joint ventures between Chinese and foreign concerns, or wholly owned foreign operations. The new world of Chinese business calls for new ways to describe the playing field.
As in the past, some giant state-owned enterprises, protected from competition by a thicket of government regulations, continue to dominate their industries. But other companies in that category, now fully exposed to global competition, vie for business against hundreds of domestic and foreign companies targeting the same customers...
By: Andrew Grant, Director for McKinsey in Shanghai office