Three Lessons on Doing Business With China: Red Roulette Author Speaks at House Hearing

'Rules of the game are whatever the Party says they are at that moment'

Author Desmond Shum talks about the Chinese-language edition of his memoir, "Red Roulette," at the book-launch event in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 12, 2023. Zhong Yuan/The Epoch Times

Desmond Shum, a former Chinese tycoon living in exile in the United Kingdom, recently traveled to Washington to appear before the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Shum is the author of Red Roulette, a 2021 memoir that exposes the secretive power and money entanglements between the most privileged families of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s private enterprises.

On the evening of July 13, Mr. Shum shared his experiences and answered questions from members of the U.S. House of Representatives about the risks U.S. companies face when doing business with China. In his testimony, he recounted three personal stories that, he said, “illustrate the essence of doing business in China.”

American Chicken ‘Not Good for Chinese Customers’

Mr. Shum’s first story dates back to the summer of 1990, when, as a college student, he worked as an intern at his father’s company Tyson Foods, which exported U.S. chicken to China. His father was the first employee of Tyson Foods in the Greater China region.