Professional social networking Web sites such as LinkedIn trying to tap into China’s vast business world are finding a formidable domestic foe—the ingrained system of personal connections known as “guanxi”.
Two leading sites, California-based LinkedIn and the French company Viadeo, are targeting networkers in the world’s most populous country, but acknowledge the challenges they face.
China has the world’s biggest online population at 564 million web users, but the history of Western Internet giants looking to establish themselves in it is littered with failures and disappointed retreats.
Google relocated its servers to Hong Kong over censorship and hacking and now has only a small share of China’s search market, while Yahoo! has had a troubled relationship with partner Alibaba.
Groupon’s entry was turbulent from the start, and it closed several offices and laid off hundreds of staff just months after launch.
Business network sites face a huge extra obstacle of their own: guanxi, China’s system of personal relationships reinforced by mutual favours which plays a vital role in conducting business and navigating a messy government bureaucracy.
Wei Wuhui, a professor at Jiaotong University in Shanghai, says that online alternatives will have a hard time supplanting its deeply embedded role.
“I don’t think the Chinese middle class has the same needs in terms of professional networks as people in the West, because of the concept of guanxi,” he said.
“In China, people do not want to meet with people they don’t know. The Chinese have a culture based on relationships among family members and close friends.”
Just one per cent of LinkedIn’s 200 million worldwide users come from China. It opened an office in Hong Kong in 2012 but has yet to offer a platform in Mandarin, despite already being available in Romanian, Malay and a dozen other languages.
“Entry into China is complicated and not something that we take lightly,” said company spokesman Roger Pua. “We’re focused on getting it right.”