The China Hustle Movie Script

All the lights go back off.

Rodman investors, invest in a bunch.

You continue to find really interesting anomalies in China.

I talked to the people who were running the industrial gases that were feeding a steel mill.

"We're making a profit on this now," and then they said, "Yes, but there's a problem.

It seems that the gauges were wrong, and we, uh, did not deliver as much gas as we charged the steel mill for." I said, "When did you find this out?" They said, "Just last week." I said, "And how much were the gauges wrong?" "Uh, by the exact amount of our profit.

It's very strange." If you respect me, I will respect you.

If this return of respect is about profit, I will give it up.

I've been told I am addressing the Honorable Ho, whose ancestors have been the glory of their provinces.

I am humble Ho, whose name stands in deep shadow before the tincture of the great company.

In China, business is done following a tradition of not having a particularly strong legal system.

So people rely more on trust and on personal relationships.

I shall gain merit in the eyes of the company by being so trusted.

There's a lot of focus on building those relationships so that you can build the trust.

The Chinese call this network of personal relationships, guanxi.

And so I give you small gifts and I do you favors, and then you owe me one.

You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

If you do enough favors of people, you have the ability to call on them for a favor that might be quite inconvenient for them.

And that they would feel an obligation to actually go forward.

This notion that guanxi wasn't just trading favors but represented something more powerful is crucial.

Dan had told me that going after Chinese companies, could be dangerous.

But it wasn't until he told me the story of Alfred Little that I really understood what he meant.

When these short reports started coming out, there was a website called Alfred Little.

And it started publishing these very interesting reports, the sort of the shoe leather, like, "We've gone out and we sat in front of this factory, and this is what we found." The website described Alfred Little as an investor with 35 years of experience, I think he was supposed to have worked at Deloitte.

You know, maybe he lived in Shanghai.