HONG KONG — In international business and finance, no less than in politics, diplomacy, defense and control of tiny strategic islands and islets in the seas around it, China is showing an increasingly assertive tendency with the clear message that it will not allow itself to be pushed around by anyone.
The last few weeks have seen the imprisonment of two high-profile foreign business executives of Chinese origin on dubious charges of stealing "state secrets" along with growing grumbles that Beijing is putting up unfair hurdles for foreigners seeking to do good business in China.
Peter Loescher, head of industrial conglomerate Siemens, and Jurgen Hambrecht, CEO of chemical maker BASF, had the temerity to challenge Premier Wen Jiabao himself in public about what they claimed was the deteriorating business climate. The two companies together have investments of more than 9 billion euro and employ 36,000 people in China.