STRATEGIC PUBLIC

RELATIONS IN CHINA:
ACTIONS, BEHAVIOR AND
COMMUNICATIONS

BY DAVID WOLF, MANAGING DIRECTOR,

GLOBAL CHINA PRACTICE

Reports in media ranging from

The New York Times to The
Telegraph suggested that politics
and protectionism were at the
roots of these actions. The
Telegraph quoted one Chinese
doctor as saying of the GSK case
everything comes down to
politics.

What such reports either ignore or

minimize is an uncomfortable
truth: while some cases are
spurious, in a number of instances
the companies were in fact guilty
of severe breaches of the law, the
public trust, or both. And, while
official rhetoric may seem to be
out of proportion to the crimes, the
companies have acknowledged
fault. Sir Andrew Witty, GSKs
chief executive, admitted to
compliance failings in China and
announced an internal
investigation. Volkswagen had
installed defective transmissions
in vehicles in China despite a
large number of public complaints,
and acceded to a recall of
384,000 cars. Additionally, a
handful of global infant formula
makers were fined for collusion
and price-fixing, a charge that the
U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission took seriously and
sparked an investigation into
Mead Johnsons practices in
China.

That is a partial truth. China has

its share of corporate miscreants
both foreign and local, and the
government appears determined
to get companies in China to start
bringing their practices into line
with global norms. In such a
target-rich environment, the
choice of whom to prosecute likely
came down to a decision about
which quarry offered the richest
political rewards.

During each of these crises, the

companies engaged their public
relations teams, both internal staff
and outside agencies. These were
wise steps. However, when a
company waits to get caught
doing something before turning to
PR for guidance, it is a sign that
public relations is a tactical
function, rather than strategic.
Unfortunately, this is the case with
most companies in China.

Over the past year, an

unprecedented number of
major international
companies with successful
operations in China were
called to the carpet by the
Chinese government.
Global blue-chips like Glaxo
Smith-Kline, Volkswagen, Apple,
and Mercedes were among those
targeted by Chinese authorities for
issues including bribery, fraud,
unequal protection of Chinese
consumers, and even pricegouging on luxury goods.

China companies fail to consult

internal PR teams on corporate
behavior for a number of reasons,
some of which are external. For
instance, there is an
acknowledged lack of
sophistication about the value and
uses of public relations among
Chinas corporate leaders.
However, the public relations
industry is the primary guilty party,
as the way we frame our value to
clients and executives in China
remains rooted in tactical
execution.
PR departments and firms still
pitch our primary value as
managing relations with media, a
habit that has made public
relations in China synonymous
with media relations or publicity.
To be sure, journalists and editors
remain a critical audience in
China. The problem is that PR
agencies there offer almost
nothing other than media
relations. This has been our bread
and butter, but now it is becoming
a golden trap: so addicted have
we become to the easy and
growing revenues from media
management that we focus our
time and our investments on
enhancing those offerings rather
than on what clients really need.
Even when we can raise our
heads high enough to see beyond
the media, agencies merely shift
3

focus to other areas of tactical

execution. PR departments and
agencies are fighting to bring the
management of social media
under public relations. Similarly,
as the industry has discovered the
central importance of content,
new hires and long-term
investments have shifted into
building in-house editorial staffs
and ranks of freelancers capable
of creating copy, graphics, and
multimedia to be used on a variety
of platforms. All of these initiatives
are necessary, but they do nothing
to address our most important
obligation: to ensure that our
companies and our clients avoid
the hazards of their own
misbehavior and navigate the
immense shifts taking place in
Chinese society.
Finally, and most insidiously,
public relations professionals have
taken to describing ourselves as
communicators. As originally
envisioned by the founders of
modern public relations, PR
consisted of two primary
functions: the first was advocacy
within the firm on behalf of a
companys publics, ensuring that
the firm operated in keeping with
the expectations of all of its
stakeholders; and second, was to
communicate to audiences that
the company deserved their
patronage and why.

Framing ourselves as
communicators has gone from
being a euphemism to a trap for
our thinking. The more we
describe ourselves as
communicators, the further we
have moved away from our
intended primary role as
advocates for outside
stakeholders at the highest levels
of company leadership.
These issues are even more
acute in China, where there is
scant history of public relations as
an advisory function to corporate
decisions. On the contrary, in the
early days of China's
industrialization, factory managers
would bring attractive young
women to meetings using their
presence to smooth business
dealings. The memory of these
so-called gong guan xiaojie, or
public relations girls, does more
to define the role of public
relations in Chinese business than
the high level counsel of an
Edward Bernays, a Dan Edelman,
or Harold Burson.
Recent events are proof that the
time has come for public relations
in China to turn away from our
role as corporate propagandists
and make PR the strategic
function it was always meant to
be, a function that guides
corporate behavior and not just

corporate communications. The

shift will not be instant or easy, but
the sooner we begin, the sooner
we can help our companies and
clients avoid the kinds of disasters
facing those mentioned at the
beginning of this article.
At minimum, that effort must
include a series of steps:

Change the way we recruit.

Rather than hiring for the
ability to work with journalists,
with social media, or to create
content, we must also hire
people with the intelligence,
gravitas, and integrity to
counsel the most senior
corporate leaders on how to
behave, even if this means
recruiting senior public
relations counselors from
outside of the PR industry;

Invest more heavily in

research to ensure that we
know enough about the
evolving expectations of the
Chinese public to counsel
senior executives; and

Change the way we talk about

ourselves by dropping the illsuited moniker of
communicators and start
referring to ourselves as public
relations professionals again.

The payoff for this effort will come

in more meaningful and fulfilling
assignments, work that places us
in the boardroom alongside
corporate leaders. Only then can
we draw from our knowledge of
the expectations of a companys
publics to guide corporate
strategy, policy and behavior. In
so doing, we will move beyond
merely delivering better
messages or telling better stories:
we can help to better the
companies themselves, and, by
extension, all of China.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Wolf is the managing
director for Allison+Partners
Global China Practice.
Counseling American, Chinese,
and European clients in a range
of industries, Wolf specializes in
managing complex
communications challenges,
including crisis, new market entry,
and corporate reorganization by
helping clients rethink their
strategies, positioning and
actions as well as their brands
and messaging. David is the
author of several published
reports, and his first book,
Making the Connection: The
Peaceful Rise of Chinas
Telecommunications Giants, was
released in April 2012. He can be
reached at
David.Wolf@allisonpr.com.

ALLISONPR.COM
Copyright 2015 Allison+Partners. All rights reserved.
All information contained herein is confidential and proprietary to Allison+Partners.