Missing an Opportunity

20 LIFE | Book Thursday, November 22, 2018 CHINA DAILY HONG KONG EDITION Musician MISSING AN OPPORTUNITY displays Bankerturned humor in author says Western politicians his memoir are letting down In his memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), Jeff Tweedy, front their own man of the US rock band Wilco, dis plays a sense of humor that his audiences will know well from his companies by onstage banter. His lyrics can be serious or light their actions. hearted, melancholic or hopeful, and sometimes nonsensical, but his Andrew Moody memoir is laced with funny anec dotes. reports. In discussing his father’s cowork ers on the railroad, he speaks of oseph Healy believes the their “teeth per head” and describes trade war being waged himself as “a doomdabbling, against China by the United 50yearold, borderline misan States is driven by politics thrope, nap enthusiast”. and paranoia rather than any ecoJ Tweedy, who grew up in small nomic imperative. town Belleville, Illinois, is a celebrat The 57yearold banker and ed singersongwriter who has author of a new book, Chinese released 10 albums with Wilco since Firms Going Global: Can They Suc the band’s founding in 1994. He ceed?, insists that US President worked with Englishman Billy Donald Trump and some Western Bragg to create original music for politicians are letting down their existing Woody Guthrie lyrics and own companies by their actions. has produced albums for Mavis Sta “It (the trade war) comes from a ples, including the Grammywin purely political agenda. It is cer ning You Are Not Alone. tainly not driven by the corporate The book will appeal to diehard sector,” Healy says. fans eager to learn about the inner “The China market represents a working of the group and Tweedy’s huge opportunity for Western relationships with bandmates past businesses with the huge growth and present, in particular, the two in the country’s middle class and Joseph Healy says there can’t be a business anywhere in the world that is not thinking about China. WANG JING / CHINA DAILY Jays, as he refers to them (Jay Farrar the openingup of its economy. with whom Tweedy formed Uncle There can’t be a business any Tupelo and Jay Bennett of Wilco), where in the world thinking about He says there is a paranoia in like BP and Shell are globally of the Fortune Global 500 compa but it will also appeal to those inter how to grow that is not thinking some Western countries, particu minded organizations, while Chi nies by 2025 will be from emerging ested in the artist’s inner life. about China.” larly the US, since Chinese compa nese companies are more Chinese markets, a large number of them Tweedy writes about his songwrit Healy, a Scot who has lived in nies are seen as automatically centered,” he says. Chinese. ing methods and how they have Australia for nearly two decades, directly linked to the Chinese gov He reflects also on when he “Being big is one thing, but that changed over the course of his career, was speaking in Beijing after flying ernment when they are not. worked for the US bank Citibank in should not be the benchmark for his earliest influences beginning in overnight from Melbourne to “People seem unable to decouple the 1990s in London. Chinese businesses. Chinese banks with the first time he read about promote his book. the political context from the com “In the London management now are the biggest in the world, punk rock how he was enthralled He says he decided to write it aft mercial context, particularly when team that I was part of, we had two but they are not international,” he before he’d even heard the music. er he completed a master’s in con it comes to infrastructure assets Pakistanis, a Mexican, a Hong Kong says. He recounts how he found a copy temporary Chinese studies in 2015 such as electricity and other ener Chinese, a couple of Americans, a Healy is more impressed by how of The Clash’s album London Calling — one of the no fewer than five gy companies, and telecommuni Greek and a couple of Brits. It had China is pioneering the technology labeled with a “parental advisory” master’s degrees that he possesses cations,” Healy says. cultural adaptability running for payment systems like Alipay warning sticker during a shopping — at the University of Nottingham “There is an assumption that through the organization, but at the and WeChat Pay. trip to Target with his mother. Over Ningbo in eastern China’s Zheji there are no links at all between same time it didn’t lose its Ameri “What China is doing in this area the course of several return visits he ang province. Western governments and big canness,” he says. makes the West look primitive. This peeled the sticker off the record cov “I wanted to write it because one businesses, despite them funding Healy, who was brought up in is one area where this capability er, hiding the album in a different thing that frustrated me living in trade delegations and giving soft Edinburgh, initially seemed des could be exported,” he says. section of the store’s record bins so Australia was that everything in support for industries,” he says. tined to be a professional soccer As was evidenced at the China that it wouldn’t be found until he’d the print media seemed to have a Healy’s main argument, howev player. He played for the Scotland International Import Expo in removed the sticker entirely and strong bias against China. I just The book focuses on the growing er, is that far from taking over the youth team as well as for the youth Shanghai earlier this month, Chi asked his mother if he could buy it. felt it lacked balance and perspec international presence of Chinese world, Chinese companies are still teams of English clubs Arsenal, na’s own market — and particularly In Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), tive,” he says. companies over the past 15 or 20 taking baby steps in terms of going Millwall, Derby and Sunderland its middleclass consumers — rep Tweedy recounts key episodes in his “By writing the book, I wanted to years. global. before injury ended the prospect of resents a major opportunity for early musical life and also tells of delve deeper into China and, in By 2016, China’s stock of out going professional. businesses around the world. events and relationships that particular, China’s place in the 21st bound investment was only a 10th The author, who retains an inter “Businesses see this opportunity shaped his being, from his close century.” Healy’s book focuses on the phe of that of the United Kingdom and est in soccer as director of the Foot in China and they want to be much relationship with his mother, years Healy was well placed to write nomenon of Chinese companies a 20th that of the US, despite ball Federation Australia, did not closer to China. At the political end of painful migraines, addiction to such a book, since as a senior bank going abroad, which has been an annual growth of 30 percent for complete his first degree at Edin of the spectrum, that sense of stra painkillers, depression and recov er for most of his career — ending increasing trend over the past 15 or more than 15 years, according to burgh University, but started out as tegic partnership just doesn’t exist, ery, to his marriage, making music up on the executive board of 20 years. Chinese companies have data provided in his book. a business analyst for Lloyds Bank unfortunately,” he says. with his two sons and his parents’ National Australia Bank, one of had a particular reputation in He says companies need to work in the 1980s in London. However, Healy is particularly deaths. Through all of it he has con Australia’s top banks — he has recent years of buying up European in particular on what he calls the He settled in Australia in 2001, excited about the potential of Chi tinued to write and record songs. dealt with many Chinese compa engineering and technology busi “four Cs” — core capabilities, cul where he worked for ANZ Bank and na’s Belt and Road Initiative. He says: “Learning how to play nies. nesses, particularly in Germany. tural adaptability, management then National Australia Bank. He is “It is going to open up markets guitar is the one thing I always look “I’d had a long career in interna “This trend is often exaggerated. competence and overcoming now the CEO and cofounder of right across Asia, and it will touch back on with wonderment.” tional banking, and in the last 15 It is actually very similar to when resistance to their country of ori Judo Capital, a bank that specializ on Europe and other places around Readers might sometimes wonder years or so I had been heavily Japan emerged as an international gin. es in lending to small and medium the world. It is going to be a great at Tweedy’s lyrics, but in his playing, involved with China, both with investor in the 1980s. I remember “Chinese companies don’t have sized enterprises. opportunity for Chinese businesses singing and writing, whether in solo Chinese businesses and Australian one particular article in The Econ a long heritage of going abroad. Healy says Chinese businesses and Western ones as well.” efforts, in collaboration with Wilco and New Zealand businesses going omist about Japan buying up New But British companies, for should not be judged purely on or in his producing other artists, we to China.

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