What the Beijing Olympics hinted about the future of international business

What's happening between the U.S. and China

An Olympic sponsor.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

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The Beijing Olympics were the perfect example of the "minefield" the U.S.-China relationship has become for business, said Ana Swanson in The New York Times. Take the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. Like the 12 other premier Olympic sponsors, P&G shelled out heavily for prominent placement in the games that ended last weekend. But it ended up spending "even more to try to prevent any negative fallout from being associated with China's repressive and authoritarian government," investing in a lobbying campaign to beat back calls for the U.S. government to stop buying products from Beijing Games sponsors. That demonstrates the dilemma of doing business in both the U.S. and China: "What is good for business in one country is increasingly a liability in the other." The backlash goes both ways; in the West, companies face the ire of human rights groups, while those that stop operating in the country's troubled Xinjiang region have been pilloried in China. Business groups say they are stuck between the laws of two countries. Human rights advocates say that's just as it should be. When you are at the Chinese Communist Party trough, says one, "you will have to turn into a pig."

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