unclechina.org

There’s some confusion among American businesspeople regarding the American Chamber of Commerce/s in China so now’s a good time to clear it up.  There is not one AmCham (as the Chambers are usually called) in China - there are several.   Yes, the one in Beijing calls itself “the American Chamber of Commerce in China” but it really only covers the Beijing area and as 2700 members.  The largest AmCham in China is the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, with over 4,000 members, it’s the largest AmCham in Asia now.  There’s also the American Chamber of Commerce in South China which is headquartered in Guangzhou.

Some businesspeople join one or the other AmCham in one of these cities and think that they are automatically members of all the AmChams in China.  This is not the case.  In fact there is significant competition between the AmChams and cooperation between them is on a case by case basis.  Readers of their websites will notice that they rarely refer to each other.  The AmCham China (Beijing) website for example claims to represent American companies doing business in China but does not even make reference to the AmChams in Shanghai or Guangzhou.

The AmCham in Beijing is the only AmCham in China which has a license to operate as the American Chamber of Commerce in China.  The other AmChams function, as most non-profit organizations in China do, as unlicensed organizations that are nevertheless quite accepted by the government.  Because of China’s paleolithic legal system for non-profit organizations the PRC will license only one Chamber of Commerce from a given country.  So while the Chinese know their system isn’t up-to-date and doesn’t recognize the reality of the situation, they nonetheless accept the existence of these other, quite seperate Chambers.