Resilient Marketing of Chinese Hotel Enterprises Based on the Marketing Mix

Announcing: Chen, Minggui and John Walsh, “Resilient Marketing of Chinese Hotel Enterprises Based on the Marketing Mix,” Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development (forthcoming).

This paper has been accepted for publication; it’s a Q2 Scopus-indexed journal and the first from my Krirk DBA students. Here is the abstract:

Resilient marketing in hotel enterprises is a research area that has not been systematically explored. This study is based on the 4p theory to conduct a systematic theoretical study of resilient marketing in hotel enterprises and promote the application of resilient marketing in hotel enterprises. Data were collected from Chinese hotel employees (n=501) through an online survey. Data were analysed using SPSS and AMOS software. confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) combined with structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to explore hotel employees’ perceptions of resilient marketing in hotel companies. The findings suggest that the concept of resilient marketing, constructed through the four dimensions of resilient products, resilient prices, resilient price, and resilient promotions, is better able to help hotel enterprises withstand crises. This study contributes to understanding how Chinese hotel enterprises use the concept of resilient marketing to withstand crises, such as positively adapting to market changes, collaboratively responding to market competition, and resisting and reversing crises situation. It has important theoretical value and practical significance for constructing a theory of resilient marketing for hotel enterprises, promoting the practical development of resilient marketing for hotel enterprise.

Keywords: Resilient Marketing; Marketing Mix; Hotel Enterprises; Crisis Management；Recovery Strategy

Review of Menon and Roth, eds., Agricultural Trade between China and the Greater Mekong Subregion Countries

My review of Jayant Menon and Vathana Roth, eds., Agricultural Trade between China and the Greater Mekong Subregion Countries has been published at IIAS and is available here.

Review of R.F. Kuang’s The Burning God

The Burning God

R.F. Kuang

London: HarperVoyager, 2021

ISBN: 9780008339180

622 pp.

Fantasy series rarely end well for the protagonists (and in the case of A Game of Thrones seem unlikely to end at all). Frodo was unable to return to normal life and disappeared overseas, while his fellow hobbits had to restore the status quo ante bellum in the Shire with violence and the privilege of adventure – not to mention what became of the poor Orcs. Conan’s head felt the crown resting heavily upon it and did not really seem to have a firm grip on the reins of power. Elric brought about the end of the world. The Dying Earth died. And so on. When I come to the third book of a trilogy of fantasy literature, I do so, therefore, with a degree of trepidation. The first book introduces the premise and explores the basic implications for the main character and a limited cast, while the second book tends to open up the rest of the world for the reader’s inspection. This must, of course, end with the world on the verge of destruction to encourage the reader to come back again and then the third book should wrap up the events and provide some sort of resolution. After the miseries and tribulations that the protagonists have suffered along the way, it is hard to imagine that they could just settle down to grow cabbages. So it is with Rin and The Burning God. We have seen in the first two books (spoilers are implicit here) not just what terrible things have happened to her but what terrible things she has done and what she plans to do in her future.

From her origin as a young outsider fighting intersectionality of discrimination at an elite military academy, she has been through trial by fire, quite literally, and become what can only be described as a dangerous psychopath. Now that she has forced her way to the head of the army fighting a civil war against an opposing faction strongly backed by monstrous foreigners, surely things are not going to end well from here. The hope of the reader continues, of course, until almost the final pages that somehow things will work out but it is evident they will not. There is genuine tragedy in Rin’s trajectory here – tragedy in the sense that there will be numerous bodies littering the stage at the end of the play and we can all see this coming but can do nothing to stop it – there is a flaw in the character of the protagonist which is going to make all of this happen and that is just the way it is.

The first two books of the series – The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic – outlined a world rather similar to the history of China in the middle of the C20^th. The country has been invaded by a Japan-like colonial power bent on treating the local Nikara people with the utmost contempt, while a division among the resistance has taken place with a Chiang Kai-Shek-like elite general having joined his faction to the interests of a western imperialist power. Rin, meanwhile, is increasingly living up to her role of ‘what if Mao had been a teenaged girl?’ This parallel seems to go a little too far on some occasions – since it makes the course of the plot too obvious for anyone who knows even a little of the history – but it does allow exploration of some of the issues and actions that occurred to people who do not understand the Chinese mindset (I am aware that there are very many Chinese and they do not all think in the same way but there are some features that unite a large proportion of the people, just as we might talk about the French character or the Russian soul). The description of the impact of the endless civil war is quite harrowing.

The difference between the Nikaran Empire and modern China is the presence of magic in the former. Magic gives agency to the otherwise powerless – and one of the priorities of the magic wielder is, of course, once a position of power has been established, to make sure that it cannot be challenged by anyone else. For some crude practitioners, Voldemort for example or Herod, this means killing anyone else who might one day represent a threat. For the more progressive-thinking tyrant, this is more likely to lead to the creation of a self-reinforcing system that provides incentives to the young magician to join a league of like-minded people with the aim of sustaining the existing power relations (e.g. Hogwarts). Rin began as a participant in the latter of these two approaches and it did not end that well. As she progresses, the source of her magic power, which is provided by access to the Phoenix God, threatens to cause her to become one of the former type of tyrant and, inevitably, we think of how Mao was at the end of the Chinese Civil War and how he ruled thereafter.

This has been a really excellent trio of books, good enough that I have been able to forgive the author for her extreme youth. It seems unlikely that she will return to this genre again, given the acclaim that has been given to her more recent books Babel and Yellowface. A glittering future awaits – I wish shoe would not use Americanisms but she is, after all, American. However, these books will be around for a long time.

John Walsh, Krirk University

Review of Reilly’s The Great Zoo of China

The Great Zoo of China

Matthew Reilly

London: Orion Books, 2014

ISBN: 9-781409-134268

529 pp.

Since there is a drawing of one of them on the dust jacket (at least on my version), I am going to name the inhabitants of The Great Zoo of China as dragons without worrying about committing a spoiler. Dragons, apparently, are able to hibernate hundreds if not thousands of years when conditions outside are not conducive to their ability to dominate the environment. They will dispatch one or two outriders from time to time to see if things are looking up but they have not been for some time. The place they have decided to wait it out is China (although there was no such country when they found a suitable sleeping place) and, in due course, the next is discovered by Chinese scientists and the decision is taken to create a zoo that will be the wonder of the age. Author Matthew Reilly (or, at least, the authorial voice) (but I think it really is his voice) is of the opinion that the problem China has is that it has nothing new or original of its own. However, with the dragon zoo, it can compete with Disneyland and have a killer punch of soft power.

As part of the plan to open the zoo and make it known around the world, leading herpetologist Cassandra or CJ Cameron has been invited to tour the facility, although without of course giving the game away in advance. She insists that she be accompanied by her brother Hamish (Hamish? Really?), despite the fact that he seems to have no useful skills or knowledge in this regard. Fortunately, CJ’s accountant father had encouraged her (but not her brother) to learn Chinese while she was growing up and now, unbeknownst to her hosts, she is completely fluent in Mandarin and can communicate easily with anyone she comes across, irrespective of their accent or use of technical terms.

So, is it really necessary for me to describe what happens in the plot, which is unfolded at a breakneck speed among explosions and blood and all kinds of really wild things? I thought not. Let me instead pose these (perhaps rhetorical) questions:

• Despite being heavily armed, briefed and trained, do the Chinese force take casualties at a huge multiple of the small band of unarmed, uninformed Americans?
• Are the Chinese leaders all vicious thugs who do not shirk from anyone who gets in their way?
• Does CJ turn out to be a combination of Jane Goodall, Superwoman and James Bond?
• CJ has had half her face clawed off by a giant alligator. Does this play any real part in the plot?
• Has Matthew Reilly based his portrayal of China and Chinese society on intensive, immersive study of the country and its people or has he perhaps been for a weekend to Hong Kong coupled with a couple of day trips to the mainland?

This is one of the books I found in the boxes into which so many were packed when I left my previous job in Thailand and moved to Vietnam. When I started opening the boxes, I could not remember having seen it before. However, it is from Kinokuniya here in Bangkok and there was another of his books, The Tournament, next to it so perhaps they came as a present, presumably from my wife. Anyway, finally it came to the top of the pile of books to be read and I have read it in the spirit of escapism in circumstances which otherwise might have been a bit gloomy. It did its job.

John Walsh, Krirk University

Review of R.F. Kuang’s The Dragon Republic

The Dragon Republic

R.F. Kuang

London: HarperVoyager, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-00-823989-3

658 pp.

My life seems increasingly to involve China and Chinese people. I work for a university owned by Chinese people and most of my teaching involves online graduate education with Chinese students. And the, of course, I keep buying books about China in real life or, in this case, in fantasy. I have some others up my sleeve as well.

The Dragon Republic continues the story of Rin and her small band of shamans – people who have such a close and personal relationship with one of the 64 gods that they can borrow their divine elemental power (or let it flow through them, more accurately). They are at the forefront of the civil war convulsing their home country – an analogue of China, while the threat from the analogous Japanese remains potent and that from the analogous westerners is looming. The central characters are all major figures in this convulsion, either because they are the rulers and generals or else they were with Rin at the imperial Sandhurst analogue and have been trained to be the next generation of leaders. There are plenty of spear-carriers and other supporting case around but they do not really interfere with the principals, who are all quite sharply down and capable of change and development.

The novel works on the level of both a personal adventure with excitement, adventure and really wild things and, also, something of a reprise of early modern Chinese history. Rin herself is a Speerly – a member of a much-dismissed ethnic minority from an island (which I imagine as one of the indigenous peoples of eastern Taiwan) with a reputation for regular opium smoking and a propensity for dangerous magic. Her desire to escape from her humble and difficult beginnings (including being orphaned and packed off to abusive foster carers) is so intense that, as I mentioned in my review of the predecessor, Poppy War, she chose to have her uterus burned out to minimize problems in long-term concentration. She faces a grand intersection of discrimination and this soon reappears whenever she is unable to wield the superhuman powers people expect to have at her beck and call. The world in which she lives is dangerous and Kuang is not afraid of killing off notable characters, even if some of them do prove to be revenants in nature. Not only that but there are alternatives to all of the stress and fighting, which is to abandon oneself to the oblivion of the poppy, which appears to be ubiquitous. Life in wartime is really quite grim and few people would be really blamed for deciding to opt out of it all. Then again, the more powerful movers and shakers of this world would be unwilling to allow so powerful a piece to lie idle off the board.

This is a very enjoyable book that zips along at great speed; the tables are turned more than once and there is no clear line to draw between the good guys and the bad guys. One of the main differences between East Asia and western literature (and cultural production generally) is that characters in the latter act, at least over the last century or so, according to elements of their psychology, while characters in the former behave according to different motivations which may not be transparent to outsiders. This tendency is also (pleasingly) present here and the reader may have to question her preconceptions from time to time.

I am looking forward to finding out, in due course, what will happen in the third and, I believe, concluding part.

John Walsh, Krirk University, July 2022

Call for Papers: China and Southeast Asia: Partnerships in a New Era

Call for Papers

Open Access Book Project: China and Southeast Asia: Partnerships in a New Era

One of the most important and long-standing relationships in the world has been the relationship between China and Southeast Asia. For centuries, the two regions have been drawn together by migration, trade and mutual use of cultural products, from language to chopsticks. Several studies exist which have mapped the nature and extent of relationships between Chinese and Southeast Asian societies and institutions. Now, with a new era of international relations emerging, it is time to re-evaluate the various partnerships that unite the two old friends and neighbours. In what ways are new forms of partnership emerging and how are existing partnerships being changed by the changes being wrought in the world by the climate emergency, the pandemic and the threat of war? In what ways can people come together to advance human achievement and knowledge?

This new open access book will be published by Krirk University International College with an ISBN and hosted on the university website. It will be freely available to everyone at no cost.

Papers may address the following subjects (or any other relevant issues):

• One Belt One Road projects in Southeast Asia
• Migration between China and Southeast Asia
• Education cooperation in China and Southeast Asia
• Food issues involving China and Southeast Asia
• Tourism issues for Chinese and Southeast Asian people
• Cross-border trade and investment cooperation
• Artistic partnerships involving Chinese and Southeast Asian artists and producers
• Engineering and scientific partnerships between Chinese and Southeast Asian scientists and engineers
• Relevant social science issues
• Infrastructure projects in China and Southeast Asia
• International relations involving China and Southeast Asia
• Religious beliefs in China and Southeast Asia

Papers should normally be between 4-8,000 words in length and should be written in English. Please use the APA citation system. Papers will be subject to review by the editor. Please contact the editor for submissions in alternative formats (e.g. video, audio).

Abstracts of up to 300 words should be sent to the editor, John Walsh, by September 30^th, 2022. Full papers will be expected by December 31^st, 2022. Requests for revisions to papers will be issued by January 31^st, 2023 and revised papers should be submitted by March 31s,t 2023. Publication will take place in April, 2023.

All enquiries should be directed to the editor, John Walsh.

Review of Brook’s The Troubled Empire

The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties

Timothy Brook

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Pres, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-674-07253-4

329 pp.

Histories of China can be a little overwhelming, what with the size of the country and its population and all of the names that are difficult to distinguish between, not to mention unusual sizes and numbers (how much exactly is a tael or a catty?). In The Trouble Empire, Timothy Brook has quite nicely avoided these problems by framing his narrative not just to the beginning and end of epochs but as a discrete time period marked out by climatological patterns, leading to droughts, hunger, disease and those other signs of misfortune which might indicate that heaven has withdrawn its mandate from the ruling dynasty. One thing that many if not most people know about Chinese history (and China today) is that its rulers fear instability and disorder above all other things and are prepared to take drastic action to avoid it. The histories of the Yuan and Ming dynasties may be read, therefore, as the 370 year long attempt to preserve order in the face of the ‘nine sloughs,’ as Brook calls the period of negative climate effects. This leads him to the conclusion that we should not wonder why the Ming dynasty fell when it did but how they managed to hang on as long as they did.

It is necessary, of course, to have a bit of history as the story of who killed whom and who got to sit on the imperial throne and this is provided concisely and well – this is a book that would be read with approval by both expert and general reader. There is a full set of sources employed but the footnotes and bibliography are tucked away at the back of the book and that is a reasonable compromise between the two types of reader. More importantly, the choice of topics is well-managed to provide a great deal of knowledge to be absorbed in a non-challenging manner. Using a wide range of sources of information, Brook provides an account of a society that was constantly changing but which maintained institutions that added continuity and stability.

The Yuan dynasty was introduced by Kubilai Khan, grandson of the Genghis (Chinggiz) Khan who planned to conquer the entire world. Kubilai’s own plan, if controlling the rich parts of east Asia and ignoring the west, which appeared to be more trouble than it was worth, was more modest but a grand enough design in its own right. He was thwarted in his attempts to invade Japan (famously but almost certainly apocryphally by the emergence of a divine wind) and pushing further south than the current border was prevented by a combination of logistics, disease and determined resistance (the Marco Polo text has a lengthy description of a battle against Burmese forces. Yet the Mongols introduced a number of innovations to public life that improved administration and, hence, overall quality of life while remaining happily indifferent to what people thought and believed. They were, nevertheless, outsiders and treated as such by the Chinese (although today Kubilai and his hordes are considered to be thoroughly Chinese) and, when they are seen off by a new dynasty, there was widespread rejoicing.

The Ming re-emphasised the importance of Confucianism to maintain families and society but were increasingly introduced to new forms of global networks, specifically trade and its attendant migration through forces beyond their control. It was, after all, during this dynastic period that Admiral Zheng He led argosies of such size and grandeur that they were not equalled until the appearance of aircraft carriers in WWII. Zheng He travelled as far west as Africa, receiving tributes and collecting rarities along the way but, eventually, the emperor became tired of the rest of the world, perhaps concluding like Kubilai before him that it was not worth the candle. Ultimately, the decision to turn inwards would culminate in the century of humiliation by foreigners. By the end of the text, Jesuits had established themselves in the heart of the empire and were receiving interest from members of the intellectual elite.

There are many details in this book about how people lived and what we know of how they thought about the world. If there is rather more of a focus on urban elites rather than the poor, women, ethnic minorities and other people regularly overlooked by history then this is hardly unique. The length of the book is also well-chosen, as it is long enough to provide sufficient information but not too long to daunt the potential reader. I bought my copy from the main branch of Eslite in Taipei and I look forward, one day, to being able to visit it again.

John Walsh, Krirk University, February 2022

China and the Building of the Kra Canal

Today I presented: Walsh, John, “China and the Building of the Kra Canal,” paper presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Chinese Studies (November 19^th, 2021, online).

I did take some screenshots of the boy in action but they seem to have disappeared somewhere. Most of the other presentations were in Chinese language but people appeared to be enjoying themselves as much as they can at events of this nature.

Here is the abstract:

Building a canal across the Kra isthmus of southern Thailand to facilitate shipping, particularly shipping from the oil-exporting countries to China, would constitute a super-project. The Kra isthmus is the narrowest part of Southern Thailand and a canal would join the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea. Such a canal, if it could ever really be built, would significantly reduce shipping times that currently involve the Straits of Malacca and would short-circuit to some extent the geopolitical advantage that the USA has by its ability to regulate movements there. In recent years, a resurgence of interest in the canal, which had been more or less abandoned because of the sheer scale of the work involved and the costs it would involve, has been brought about as a result of increased Chinese influence in the region. The opening of railways linking China with Myanmar and Lao PDR indicate once more the interests of the Chinese government in establishing stronger links in the region. While the previous monarch (King Rama IX) was thought to be opposed to the project, the current incumbent is said to be more open to large-scale infrastructure projects that might characterise his reign. Opening the canal would have enormous social, political and environmental impacts on Thailand and the neighbouring region but would also have serious disruptive impacts upon current and future shipping patterns. It would also have significant benefits for China in improving its shipping capacity and in reinforcing strong links with the governments and people of the area through the Belt and road Initiative (BRI).

Keywords: China, Kra Canal, political impacts, shipping, Thailand

Unless I get some interest from this conference, I think I might knock this Kra Canal thing on the head unless some new and compelling data become available. Let’s see.

Mission Foods (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.: The National Implications of Developing Middle-Class Tastes

Together with my co-author Dr. Petcharat Lovichakorntikul, I have been invited to make a presentation at the 11th Asian Food Study Conference to be held in Haikou later this year (more information is available here). It will be an online presentation.

The paper takes the form of a case study of Shanghai’s Mission Food Ltd., which is one of the companies helping to influence the nature of food consumption within China as part of its emergence into a middle-class, bourgeois consumer society. Here is the abstract:

Mission Foods (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.: The National Implications of Developing Middle-Class Tastes

Abstract

Mission Foods (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. was opened in China in 2006 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Gruma Group, which now has 49 factories around the world, including Malaysia and Singapore in East Asia in addition to China. The firm’s background is in manufacturing and distributing Mexican snacks such as tortillas, chips, pancakes and wraps made from wheat. Mexican food is quite different from Chinese food, although there are some similarities. For example, barbecued duck is wrapped in a soft pancake in the famous Peking (Beijing) duck dish which has become a favourite around the world. While younger generations of Chinese consumers, particularly those urban, aspirant middle-class individuals tend to be more adventurous in their taste and are willing to try international cuisine. For more traditionally-minded Chinese, Mission Foods’ task is to add their products to the list of acceptable snack and meal choices by uniting them Chinese flavours or else in such a way as to become incorporated into household options. To some extent, this process is similar to producers of snack goods like cashew nuts, broad beans and other processed nuts and seeds. This rapidly growing sector is associated with innovative Chinese companies which have arranged imports of raw materials, processing and marketing them in a way that will be found palatable to national consumers. Distribution is likely to be via e-commerce websites at least in part, thereby reinforcing the idea that these products represent an aspect of entering into middle-class status, in which households accommodate food which does not have to be eaten immediately or which is not eaten because of hunger. Companies such as Linyi Fuchun Food Co. Ltd. and Shandong Chunwang Food Tec. Co. Ltd have begun to establish profitable businesses in this sector. Mission Foods has, therefore, a three segments market approach: competing in the snack market with the abovementioned firms and others in that category; competing in the restaurant and home consumption market as an international new arrival and, third, providing components for crossover products seeking to provide Chinese taste-friendly innovations. One example of this is KFC’s ‘Old Beijing Twister,’ which is a fried chicken wrap served with spring onions and sweet sauce. Taco Bell outlets in Shenzhen and Shandong also source Mission Foods’ tortillas for its successful Mexican Chicken Wrap offering. This case study utilises secondary data in the public domain to identify the means by which a Chinese company can pursue a segmented marketing strategy as a means of encouraging the internationalisation of domestic tastes and habits. In terms of national economic strategy, Mission Foods may be said to be an agent of the dual circulation approach which brings external elements into the domestic circulation system, which will need to be strengthened as a means of reinvigorating national economic growth. Some suggestions are provided, therefore, as to how intercommunication of this sort might be promoted.

Keywords: China; dual circulation; marketing strategy; segmented markets; snack markets

East Asia Forum Article

My piece on “Why Are Chinese Troops Assembling on the Myanmar Border?” which was published by East Asia Forum a few days ago (https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/07/03/why-are-chinese-troops-assembling-on-the-myanmar-border/) has been picked up in a few other places: Channel News Asia (https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/china-military-troops-border-myanamar-economic-interests-15158170); EBO Myanmar (http://www.euro-burma.eu/news/show/49470/); Last Minute Online News (https://lastminuteonlinenews.com/tag/belt-and-road-initiative-myanmar/); Hue Wire (Why are Chinese troops assembling on the Myanmar border? | | Huewire | Opnion News | Forum |Diversity In America); News Buka (News Buka: November 2013); Middle East Daily (Commentary: Why are Chinese troops assembling on the Myanmar border? – The Daily Middle East (themiddleestdaily.com)); PHP News (https://phpbbheb.com/why-are-chinese-troops-gathering-at-the-burmese-border/)and some blogs..

I think it is the first time that I have been published in Nigeria, which is nice. I will try to do a few more articles like I did at RMIT Vietnam with the purpose of raising the profile of Krirk University, which has scope for improvement in this respect.