Chinese Lucky Knot tassels mean good luck and prosperity.

Good afternoon. It is noon in town, and we hope to share our thoughts about the political context component of the Entrepreneurial Contextual Analysis. For those of you who are new to my blog, after finishing the Volvo Ocean Race 2017-2018, we decided to start the theme: Entrepreneurs without money. Why? Well, simply because after vulnerable situations, such as a war, violence, domestic or internal armed conflicts, political changes, refugee crisis, global financial calamities, natural disasters (like Hurricane Maria, mudslides, tsunamis or earthquakes), or forced migrations; the first thing that human beings may lose is their life. If they survive, people may lose their shelters, their sources of basic services (food, electricity, water) and their job security. Decent Jobs offer security and safety to people. Decent Jobs and good wages preserve the financial-social stability for individuals and families.

Entrepreneurship is one way of job creation. Another one is to become an employee. A possible entrepreneurship journey of El Salvador by accepting China´s help resources or projects means potential opportunities to open new investments, collaboration, and poverty reduction projects.  How to know about the impact that China will have in El Salvador? El Salvador authorities have to do the homework to know and prepare beforehand.

El Salvador Lilliputians before the China Gulliver. Image Source: BBC Gulliver’s Travels: Part 1: Voyage to Lilliput

The Entrepreneurial Contextual Analysis is a methodology utilized to value the different contexts we must ask ourselves before starting an entrepreneur endeavor of any kind. Included China-El Salvador commercial relations. One of the objectives of my blog is to explain complicated things, in the most simple ways. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I just try to do it. Let´s use the figure of Gulliver´s travels today. Gulliver China is enormous and the Lilliputians Salvadorans are tiny. Even if we are the “little” Salvadoran lilliputians before the China Gulliver, during this negotiation journey, we must do it correctly, setting up the limits and asking for what we really need and want for the long run. We also have to keep US commercial-diplomatic relations in outstanding terms. The politics between China and the US must be kept away from our journey. Maybe we can help China and the US to become allies and help them to stop their commercial war. Maybe…

Let´s start with the political context. Hmm… Wait a minute. My apologies. But I won´t share about the political context. I am not an expert in political analysis. In consequence, I prefer to pass this theme to the experts in foreign political affairs.

My only consideration in relation to this political context is to encourage you to at least talk to your faculty politics professors or political analysts which are experts in relation to these matters.  The world is changing, and many of the classical ideology differences of the last century are relatively doomed to disappear. The right-leftist, the communist-capitalism, the protectionist-globalization… all of them new oxymorons of suggestive evolved realities. More and more,  communists are now acting like capitalists. More and more, globalists have started to use the protectionist flag. And we see more and more, right-wing people who have business democratic alliances with left-wing people.

From the point of view of a corporate strategist (which is my domain area), China is a promoter of one of the most capitalists manufacturing business models of the whole history, much more capitalist than whatever the US has done during the last century. Ironically,  China has been forced to evolve more and more to a blurry, melted political west-east new political “ideology”. Mao Tse Tung legacy will be probably only remembered by the new generations as an old wax stamp in their ancestors´memory. Just time will tell.

Let´s go back to the metaphor of Gulliver´s travels. The end of the Jonathan Swift story of Gulliver in Lilliput is amazing. “Despite the fear of the Lilliputians, Gulliver promised to won’t harm them. Gulliver promised to help them fight a neighboring country called Blefuscu. Gulliver captured the enemy’s navy with ease and helped the Lilliputians win the war. Gulliver became their hero and they made him part of the king’s court”. Of course, let´s contextualize Gulliver story with the Salvadoran Lilliputian priorities. The Salvadorans don´t have the same problem of the Swift´s Lilliputians, we have other problems such as corruption, an incipient judicial system, gangs violence, extreme poverty, water systems have to be renewed, lack of financial contingencies for natural disasters consequences, lack of top quality education, unemployment, lack of quality public transportation systems, lack of good natural medicines, lack of modern and “state of the art” solutions for problems as cancer, heart-diseases, diabetes,  Alzheimer, etc.

Can Gulliver China in strategic alliance with the American US, help the Salvadoran Lilliputians to eradicate our main problems? 

Next week we will continue with the Environmental Context, one of my favorite ones. Thank you. Stay tuned!

Source references utilized to write this article:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326594/gullivers-travels-by-jonathan-swift/9780141366302/

Disclaimer: All the presentation slides shown on this blog are prepared by Eleonora Escalante MBA-MEng. Nevertheless, all the pictures or videos shown on this blog are not mine.  I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy