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AbstractThe purpose of this thesis is to analyse the threat of industrial espionage for Western companies in the high-tech industry in China. Due to the emerging economy and the higher level of development, high-tech companies take the opportunity of investing in China. The literature study explains why the threat might be considered higher in China than in other countries, what methods spies apply and what kind of prevention measures companies can implement to protect their trade secrets against industrial espionage. The research consists of in-depth interviews with employees of Belgian high-tech companies doing business with China. The first chapter puts the concept of 'industrial espionage' in a broader context. It includes a short introduction to the definition and history of industrial espionage. Furthermore it explains why industrial espionage not only affects the companies and individuals involved, but also the economy and society as a whole. Finally the chapter points out that in the recent years industrial espionage evolved from more technical methods to cyber espionage and how this consequently affected the international relations between countries. Cyberwar especially increased the distrust between China and the US. The second chapter describes industrial espionage as a problem and the additional difficulties that this topic generates. The biggest difficulty for the research part concerning industrial espionage is the lack of transparency of companies and known information in this typical field. The problem for the companies is the dilemma between the indefinable risk and the cost of prevention measures. The third chapter explains the threat of China in industrial espionage. To a large extent we can attribute the threat to the current policy of the Communist Party that encourages the development of high-tech that does not depend on foreign companies. The fourth and fifth chapter analyses the methods of industrial espionage and the profile of a spy. Furthermore the thesis examines how companies can protect their trade secrets with prevention measures against industrial espionage in the sixth chapter. The literature study finishes with an evaluation of the Chinese legal system and the intervention of the Belgian government in the protection of intellectual property. The second part of the thesis consists of the research. The assumptions made in the literature study are tested through in-depth interviews on Belgian high-tech companies that invest in China. The final conclusion states that the companies are aware of the threat of industrial espionage in China. All the companies confirmed that they implement an awareness program to limit the risk of industrial espionage and some carry out additional measures. A standard procedure to protect companies from industrial espionage does not exist, mainly because most companies are fundamentally different. The companies search for the most efficient measures for their industry and for their business through experience. The best improvement for the future would be the help and advise from the Belgian government, to guide companies when they invest in a foreign country like China. However, industrial espionage is a problem occurring in all countries when doing business and has a repeating pattern: developing countries that aren't able to generate their own technology will copy from developed countries. If in the future China reaches its goal of becoming world leader in the development of high technology, we might be the ones copying from the Chinese.

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The art of manipulating words, written or spoken, to persuade people has a long and profound history in the west. This artform, more simply known as 'rhetoric', has been studied by scholars from as early as the glorious Greek and Roman empires of the past. To Westerners, rhetoric not only holds the meaning of the art of eloquence, but also the study of the techniques and methods that might contribute to the development of this art. In China, however, the study of rhetoric is still at its infancy stage. Only since the early 20th century rhetoric has become an object of discussion in the academic spheres of Chinese universities. Even until today there is no unanimously accepted definition of distinct features of Chinese rhetoric. Because of the young age of the academic discipline in China and the lack of a translated systematized canon of Chinese rhetoric in the West, Western scholars in the research field of comparative rhetoric have have begun to search Chinese literary texts for rhetorical devices and concepts.. It did not take long before a heated debate between different the scholars arose. One of the main points in this debate is the relevancy of the western-influenced conceptual framework some pioneering scholars adopted in their research. Their adversaries claim that such a model caused the results of their research to depend on western biases towards rhetoric and that therefore their research lacks of objectivity. The author of this thesis wants to test the validness of above conviction. Moreover, he aims to proof that, while the research in which one lays concepts belonging to his or her own culture as the basis of their method might influence the results in some ways, such research can also create new insights into non-Western discourse patterns and rhetorical conventions. To make his point he uses a critical rhetorical analysis, developed by the linguist Antoine Braet (1942º), which is based on the structural conventions and rhetorical devices as designed by Aristotle (384-322 AD), Cicero (106-43 AD) and Quintilian (35-96). The author applies this method to twelve speeches were originally held by the current chairman of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping. The speeches have been randomly selected and afterwards organized into three categories: speeches for a crowd with foreigners, speeches on routine occasions and speeches on special occasions. At the end of the thesis, the author draws four tentative conclusions from the analysis. Firstly, he argues that Xi Jinping is a good rhetorician, if we judge him from our Western perspective. Secondly, he posits Xi Jin ping is not likely to give discourse to alternative viewpoints during speeches as evidenced by simply stating the solution he has chosen to implement without delving into a further explanation of why that theory is best.Thirdly, he notices that Xi often uses set phrases and cultural allusions in his speeches. He considers this to be an outcome of a different idea of creativity that Chinese have. Lastly, he marks out several differences between the three used categories. Finally, the thesis concludes by remarking that scholars should not necessarily strive away from their own cultural framework when doing research on rhetorical discourse in Chinese. According to the author, such framework might give researchers a different perspective or new insights and is necessary to build towards a better understanding of Chinese political discourse.

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The Chinese culture is very different from the western culture and the Chinese e-commerce market can be considered more advanced than the western e-commerce market. This makes it difficult for western companies to enter the Chinese e-commerce market. Therefore the major objective of this study is to determine what western companies can learn from e-commerce in China with particular reference to their Chinese as well as their western web shops. It does so by exploring what significant differences exist between Chinese and western fashion e-commerce websites. First, this thesis provides an overview of the evolution, size and peculiarities of the Chinese fashion e-commerce market. In the second part, it proceeds to the research setup. Based on previous literature, a framework of eight categories with 40 elements to investigate was conducted. A comparative analyses of the western webshop, the Chinese webshop and the webshop on the Chinese Tmall platform of two western brands and the Chinese webshop and the webshop on the Chinese Tmall platform of two Chinese brands were then carried out. The results of this study suggest that for desktop websites there are mainly content related differences. For mobile websites there is also a lay-out difference in play. Namely the mobile websites of the Chinese brands look like an app, while the mobile websites of the western brands just look like a smaller version of their desktop website. The lay-out and way of use of Chinese and western desktop websites however, seems to be surprisingly similar and can thus be copied from the western website when going to China. The content on the other hand needs to undergo some changes. The images shown on the homepage and the recommended products need to be adapted to the preferences of the local customer. Promotions should also keep in mind local traditions whilst not being too obtrusive. When communicating with Chinese customers companies should consider introducing a chat service to their customer service and advertising and being present on Chinese social media. Two other findings in this study include Chinese people like ratings and reviews because of the word of mouth component and clicks-and-mortar integration is not really used nor necessary because of the nature of the Chinese market.

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Uyghur resistance to Chinese rule is becoming more visible to the outside world, especially after 9/11 when China began publicizing its problem with Uyghur terrorism. In this thesis we examine how the ethnic conflict between the Uyghurs and the Han Chinese is portrayed in Chinese and foreign media. Therefore we use a case study of newspaper reports on one specific event: the riots in Urumqi in July 2009, in the Renmin Ribao from Mainland China, the South China Morning Post from Hong Kong and the New York Times from the United States. All important papers in their domain were chosen as representative of regional perspective. The first section begins with a short introduction to the recent history of the Uyghurs in China. Modern Uyghur nationalism is explained as formed in direct opposition to the Chinese government's policies in Xinjiang. An examination of historical causes, Uyghur grievances and China's response before and after 9/11, is followed by a description of the most recent developments. Afterwards, we move on to a brief introduction on the different media landscapes. We examine the role of Chinese media as an ideological instrument used by the communist party, and the role of American media as a guardian of democracy. Hong Kongese media are described as balancing between these two extremes. The second section is composed of a case study of the 2009 Urumqi riots. By analysing three different newspapers, we attempt to answer two research questions. First, how do the media evaluate the riots? Which elements do they emphasize on? Second, how do Chinese newspaper reports differ from the Hong Kongese and American reports? A total of 143 relevant articles starting from the day of the riots for two weeks after were analysed. In the first part of the analysis, we focus on the most common themes and descriptions in each newspaper, using the attribute agenda setting theory. This theory states that media can influence how people see an issue by selective placement of emphasis. In the New York Times and South China Morning Post we distinguish several different descriptions of the two main actors, namely the Chinese government and the Uyghurs. The Renmin Ribao focuses heavily on presenting the official party view by a systematic rotation of the same themes. Therefore we distinguish the most commonly used general themes. In addition, for each theme or description we also examine which actors the newspaper cites or paraphrases to make its point. In the second part of the analysis, Framing Theory is used to analyse each newspaper. While we focus on the theory's five generic frames, we also distinguish issue-specific frames for each newspaper. To conclude, we compare the most striking results of the analysis of each newspaper. The results reveal that the Renmin Ribao on the one hand, and the New York Times and South China Morning Post on the other hand, are telling an entirely different story about the events. China's state newspaper emphasizes the reestablishment of social stability and puts the blame on outside agitators. The other two newspapers, however, focus on the recent development of Uyghur nationalism and are very critical towards China's political decisions. Yet, the South China Morning Post appears to be more moderate in its views and critique than the New York Times.

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Vaak verschijnen er in kranten of op televisie allerlei berichten in verband met China. Sommigen daarvan handelen over de luxegoederenmarkt in China, Chinese toeristen die exuberante bedragen uitgeven in het buitenland, de verstedelijking in China of de grote kloof tussen arm en rijk. Al deze berichten hebben één sociale groep gemeen: de Chinese nieuwe rijken.De Chinese nieuwe rijken een relatief recent fenomeen. Na de turbulente jaren van het beleid van Mao Zedong volgen er al snel economische hervormingen, met de openstelling van het land en de markt tot gevolg. Vanaf de jaren 90 van de twintigste eeuw ontstaat er een nieuwe middenklasse, een tot dan toe in China onbekende sociale klasse.Hun consumentengedrag verbaast de hele wereld. Chinezen hebben onlangs Japanners ingehaald als grootste consumenten van luxeproducten ter wereld, en op alle mogelijke plaatsen kan je Chinese toeristen dure aankopen zien doen. Door hun consumptiepatronen streven ze naar een hogere maatschappelijke status of willen ze hun huidige sociale positie verstevigen. Dit interessant gegeven wil ik in deze thesis onderzoeken. Eerst zorg ik voor een theoretische basiskennis door het ontstaan en de kenmerken van de Chinese nieuwe rijken te onderzoeken. Daarna neem ik hun consumentengedrag onder de loep. Welke factoren hun winkelgedrag beïnvloeden en hoe zij aankoopbeslissingen nemen zijn twee belangrijke elementen in dit deel. Ook bespreek ik de huidige situatie op de luxemarkt in China en enkele belangrijke veranderingen die deze aan het doormaken is. Verder kijk ik ook nog naar op welke manier bedrijven hun producten het best aan de Chinese nieuwe rijken kunnen aanbieden. Deze theoretische kennis toets ik aan de realiteit in het laatste hoofdstuk. Door middel van interviews bij Belgische verkopers in Antwerpen en Brussel probeer ik een beeld te schetsen van de Chinese nieuwe rijke toerist in België en zijn consumentengedrag in de winkels.Chinese nieuwe rijken zijn een interessante soci...