IN JUNE 1989, Jeanne-Marie Gescher arrived to develop a presence for a British multinational law firm in China. Having arrived alone on a jumbo jet, she spent the first weeks and months meeting individuals who were on their way out, convinced the best of China's years were over.
'I thought that they were wrong. China had everything to develop and I was convinced that the next decade would be one of the most interesting in China's modern history.' She has stayed ever since. Over the next few years, Ms Gescher worked with Chinese lawyers and foreign multinationals on a broad range of access issues.
'Fundamentally, we were engaged in the development of a regulatory infrastructure, a process which has taken hundreds of years in the West and which in China has been compressed into two decades. It is an immensely challenging and exciting process which focuses not just on the technical aspects of legal drafting but on fundamental policy issues which affect everyone - education, technology, enterprise and access to capital. And, given China's geographical size and population, on an unprecedented scale.'
Her experiences led to the establishment of her own consultancy which, based in Hong Kong and with a representative office in Beijing, provides strategic advice to multinational and mainland companies for China, Europe and the United States. She sees China not just as a market but as an important source of ideas and energy.
'In the last five years, China has absorbed almost all of the technologies which we in the West have acquired incrementally over a 20-year period. In the urban areas, this has created a population which is technology-hungry - and very savvy. It is not surprising that many of China's brightest technological minds take their MBAs in the US, acquire business skills in Silicon Valley and then return to China to build technology businesses.
'The Chinese language is also significant - iconographic, Chinese characters are well suited to the digital world. The Internet offers a cost-effective, accessible medium for communications which could almost be 'made for China'. The interesting thing is not just that there will be more Chinese-language sites [than English ones] on the Internet by 2007, or even 2006, but that these will be used to create a powerful platform for new business communications and new content formats tapping into the huge potential of China's highly tech-savvy youth,' she said.