Beijing Jeep: The Short, Unhappy Romance of American Business in China

When American Motors Corporation in 1979 undertook a joint venture with Beijing Auto Works to manufacture jeeps in China, the two parties had divergent aims, according to this informative, well-researched account by a Los Angeles Times Far East correspondent. AMC saw a new market ``opened up'' by China's friendlier attitude toward foreign business, but the Americans eventually concluded that what the Chinese really wanted was Western technology. After years of bedeviled negotiation of monetary arrangements, product dimensions and management structure, jeeps eventually did roll off the Beijing assembly line. China's low living standards and lack of foreign exchange, however, made a consumer boom highly unlikely in any case, notes Mann. With Chrysler's purchase of AMC in 1987 the Beijing partnership began to break up, and ended with the Westerners' departure after the massacres in Tiananmen Square. First serial to Fortune. (Dec.)