China has given rise to a vibrant and innovative tech industry despite the culture dictated by the Confucian conformity as well as the strict rules enforced by the Chinese Communist Party. They have done so through the guidance and inspiration of Silicon Valley.
China’s tech industry has copied Silicon Valley’s innovator-meet-investor network of incubators and venture capitalists. Startup employees and leaders actively seek to question the two attributes that are widely discouraged in corporate China, which are authority and thinking outside the box.
Many of those copying the model have never experienced working in Silicon Valley. Hence, the understanding of the culture only comes secondhand.
Silicon Valley also provides a model for a new type of politician, business gurus and thought leaders in China. Examples are Jack Ma, the founder of the Alibaba Group Holdings, and Lei Jun, the founder of the tech company Xiaomi.
Baidu, one of China’s largest tech companies, owes a heavy debt to Silicon Valley. Eric Xu, a co-founder of Baidu, made a documentary in the late 1990s that entails how Silicon Valley helped model the company when it was unstructured and meritocratic before.
David Chao, a partner at the venture capital firm DCM, said: “Silicon Valley has become a kind of beacon of cultural change in China. Hollywood could impact what kind of handbag a lady buys in China, but it never impacted corporate culture like Silicon Valley has.”
Silicon Valley's culture is now being embraced eagerly. There are some companies that created Apple-styled products, developers who are working on planned communities, and startup offices that adapt the office setup similar to what Silicon Companies currently have.
The influence is not widely accepted on most Chinese companies though. Most are still running on highly top-down, bureaucratic and more deeply conservative culture. Silicon Valley’s soft power is also most unlikely to help tech giants Google and Facebook get back into operating in mainland China.