The Seminar

On 2 November, a delegation from the Beijing Municipal Government visited the China Chamber of Commerce in the UK (CCCUK), and a symposium was held on public relations and response to public opinion outbursts for Chinese enterprises in the UK. The seminar was attended by LIU Junsheng, spokesperson of Chaoyang District People’s Government of Beijing Municipality; CHANG Yun, Vice Chairman of the CCCUK; LEI Xiaoxun, Vice Director of China Daily EU and 13 delegates from Beijing municipal government.

Welcome Speech by Madam CHANG Yun, Vice Chairman of the CCCUK

Madam CHANG Yun firstly introduced CCCUK’s development in the UK. She said that the CCCUK advocates the integration of Chinese enterprises into the local community and their active communication with the local government. As more and more Chinese enterprises look to internationalisation, important factors in ensuring the sound development for them is to enhance their brand image, expand their branding efforts and deal effectively with public opinion outbursts. Therefore, if the sources of public opinion risks can be grasped and relevant response plans can be prepared, the government would achieve a more effective communication with enterprises and the public, so that it could better formulate and implement relevant policies, leading to a more stable business environment.

The Speech by LIU Junsheng, spokesperson of Chaoyang District People’s Government of Beijing Municipality

As Mr. LIU Junsheng stressed in his speech, the delegation is visiting UK to discuss issues related to public relations and public opinion response for Chinese enterprises in the UK. He said that as a spokesperson, one not only represents the government’s external voice, but also its overall external image; good publicity will help to create a favourable public opinion environment for the development of the government. He hopes that the government and enterprises can effectively communicate and share information with each other, so that the government can better serve the enterprises.

At the seminar, delegates from Brunswick Group analysed and explained how Chinese enterprises in the UK should carry out public relations in crisis, taking into account a series of cases. They stressed that enterprises cannot prevent a crisis from taking place, but they could reduce its probability; enterprises should establish a risk assessment mechanism internally and be aware of stakeholders’ issues so as to prevent crises before they happen. Secondly, as they put it, enterprises should work on information transparency and proactively communicate with the government and regulatory authorities to achieve truthful, reliable and transparent information to help themselves get through the crisis with minimal cost. At the same time, enterprises should also pay attention to the ways and means of handling crises, so as to deal with them effectively and reasonably.

Participants from both sides also had an in-depth discussion on successful cases of China-UK cooperation and other related topics, and hoped that both sides would carry out more extensive exchanges and cooperation in the future to better convey voices and stories of Chinese businesses.