HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies to do business in China and that his own company was considering other countries to invest in.
He complained that China was increasingly hostile toward foreign multinationals and showing growing protectionist tendencies.
"I really worry about China," Immelt told a dinner audience in Rome. "I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful."