China and the New Silk Road – Ethics and the Sustainable Development Goals

​As part of an ongoing project, Hua Dan was invited by the British Embassy in China to collaborate on a series of workshops exploring how businesses working along the Belt and Road Initiative can implement more ethical and sustainable measures in their business practices.
 
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s biggest infrastructure project to date, an attempt to replicate the old land and maritime ‘silk routes’ that traversed Asia and Europe, facilitating both trade and the spread of ideas between East and West.  Some estimates put the cost of implementing the project at US$8 trillion.
 
Not without controversy, there is an effort on the part of many countries to encourage China to take an ethical approach to its development and a desire to commit companies working along the ‘road’ to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals to their way of doing business.
 
As part of this, I developed a series of workshops to bring together key stakeholders in 3 regional cities in China – Beijing, Chengdu and Guangzhou – to explore what ethical business should look like in these contexts.
 
The first workshop in Beijing focused on environmental issues and we used the ‘Frozen Pictures’ technique to develop story and character around people affected by the environment.  These ranged from rural workers who developed illnesses due to polluted water and were unable to work due to desertification corrupting agricultural land, to a young couple expecting their first baby and concerned to leave Beijing to ensure a healthy upbringing for their child.
 
The workshop in Guangzhou focused on workplace discrimination and touched on age discrimination, the hardships migrant workers face in marrying in the city, pregnancy discrimination and the racism experienced by African migrants in their efforts to find work in China.
 
All workshop participants found theatre to be an extremely effective way of addressing these issues and there was a common feeling that current efforts to change behaviour were limited with an overemphasis on reports and statistics.  By contrast, they felt that the theatre-based approach allowed people to understand the issues at a much deeper, more realistic way, how they affected people at the grassroots and that this could, in turn, affect policies and the education needed around how we dealt with climate change or gender discrimination at work.  There was also a marked desire to continue the conversation about how to encourage businesses to commit to making their contribution and to build community around these discussions.
 
One participant saw a value in not only performing himself but also in watching others perform.  He felt that when he performed himself, it forced him to think about the issue and how to express it to others.  On the other hand, when you watch someone else do a performance around environmental issues, it has a more direct impact than someone just simply giving you the information.
 
Changes that participants had implemented in their work and personal lives as a result of their participation in the workshop included:

• A reduction in meat eating and a refocus on recycling as much as possible.
• Rethinking of how messages can be spread and a shift towards more creative means of communication issues around the environment
• Importance of education in combating environmental issues
• Implementing changes in how they trained men and women to deal with clients, respecting gender difference in communication styles.

 
As one participant said:
“In the past, when we do workshops we will be presented an issue, with instructions about the things that we can do to tackle the problems.   But in this workshop we got down to very detailed observations, looking at people that have disadvantages.  It enabled us to think in different levels rather than just the big theory.  It was more vivid, more tangible."
 
Hua Dan is committed to projects such as these as, given our extensive experience working with migrant workers in China, we have witnessed the extraordinary rise of China’s growth through the lens of the very people who have, quite literally, built China.  Our corporate consulting work is increasingly focused on helping corporates learn the lessons we have encountered on the ground and bringing those more human solutions to leadership decision-making.
 
We are always interested in partnering with corporations interested in instilling more ethical leadership in their supply chains and cross-cultural management to ensure globalisation is more equitable for all concerned.  Please contact caroline@carolinewatson.org if you or your company is interested in collaborating on a project such as this.