Money Machine

Chapter 6Rolling Faster

It seemed that the ball had started rolling fast. The fact that Zhu Rongji had not raised any objections to our proposed deal for SDB surely augured well for the other necessary approvals. But we also knew that this was only the first step. We had now, I felt, been allowed to compete in the race, but there would still be many obstacles to overcome to reach the finish line. There were innumerable other agencies and regulators both at the local and the central government levels we would need to work with before it was over.

From the other side of the Pacific, wandering in the Stonestown shops with my daughter, my mind drifted back to Hong Kong. I kept thinking of how sharp and well‐connected Zhou Lin had to be to have gotten the proposal so quickly to the prime minister's office. Zhou was deftly navigating the Chinese bureaucracy, no question. Others might have started from the bottom, submitting the framework agreement to local governments and regulators in Beijing, waiting at every turn for the relevant approvals. But that route would likely have left the deal bogged down with various agencies, simply because there were no rules or precedents to follow. If the matter could be handled from the top, on the other hand, then the various officials down the line would know to move faster. This was Zhou's method: He worked on the top officials from day one.

As my daughter shopped, I was on the phone telling my partners of what I had just learned in the phone ...