In 2011, after a decade as the CEO of a major U.S. bank--Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), at the time the world's largest lender to the technology and venture capital industries--Ken Wilcox moved to China. There he would establish a bank, a joint venture between SVB and the Shanghai government, to lend to technology startups. The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That Win-Win Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice is an eyewitness account of how that project went awry. But the torturous process of establishing the joint venture bank is just the starting point for this book. Rather than focusing on banking, international relations, or government policy, the book describes the ethics and practices widely adopted by Chinese businesses today, along with the role played by the CCP. Based on the meticulous notes Wilcox took and from interviews with people from all walks of Chinese life--Party and non-Party members, the business elite and domestic workers alike--this book explores what Western businesses and, more broadly, Westerners who interact with China on any level must grasp to work constructively with China, including their motivations, myths, and beliefs. Wilcox also provides a valuable first-person account of the rise of Xi Jinping and the internal impact of his early strategies. Despite his frustrations, Wilcox also explains how he found China fascinating, entrancing, alluring, and maddeningly complex, with descriptions of the many delightful individuals he met, from the baijiu-loving history buff to the apartment-hopping Chinese instructor. The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That Win-Win Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of all international business leaders seeking to understand the potentially harsh reality of doing business with Chinese companies and how to make the right moves at every step of the process.