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Big Bucks Flock to Beijing

By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 9, 2008 9:16 AM CDT

(Newser) – The Beijing Olympics are a celebration of sport, for sure, but they are happening in China, which makes them a business opportunity unlike earlier Games. Folks with deep pockets are converging on the capital to wheel and deal, with an eye to the emerging middle-class market of some 300 million they'd like to tap. China still runs on guanxi, an informal network of connections that makes breaking in a painstaking process, the Telegraph reports.

Which is why, for instance, Coca-Cola is bringing 10,000 people to the Games, and Rupert Murdoch is having lunch with President Hu Jintao. To elude state controls and find the money-making opportunities takes connections. And Western businessmen are exploiting the welcoming Olympic atmosphere to make them, strike deals and get a better bead on how business is done.

More fireworks in Beijing.
More fireworks in Beijing.   (AP Photo)
Fireworks explode over the National Stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Fireworks explode over the National Stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.   (AP Photo)
News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch.
News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch.   (AP Photo)
The Coca Cola emblem.
The Coca Cola emblem.   (AP Photo)
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