The consensus is that there are vast fortunes to be made as China opens up to ever more advanced goods, but those laying plans to open for business there have to bear a few disagreeable negatives in mind – Bill Gates is virtually persona non grata there because Microsoft Corp tried to bring in a Chinese version of Windows in a politically incorrect way and didn’t seek to get it mandated by the government – when the lack of such a mandate amounts to near enough an outright ban; Tate & Lyle Plc says it took no fewer than 1,200 official signatures to get its latest joint venture off the ground, and McDonald’s Corp is wondering ruefully whether all those hard-won signatures really amount to a hill of beans anyway – it opened in a prime site in Peking after going through exhaustive procedures to ensure that it really did have title to the site, has now been ordered to move because its vast store, only just opened, is in the way of another prestige state development.
