Bad Timing for Trade Show : The turmoil in Beijing left American buyers wary of deals with China firms.

Liu Hanchi, the director of the Tianjin Fountain Pen Factory in Tianjin, China, sat forlornly at his factory’s sales booth here this week.

He was in this Cleveland suburb for the only Chinese trade show under way in the United States during the crisis in his homeland, and Liu was finding it very difficult to attract American customers interested in exporting the fine pens and pencils his government-run enterprise manufactures in Tianjin, about 75 miles from Beijing.

“We haven’t done any real business so far,” Liu said through an interpreter.

The crisis in China seems to have had an effect on “those American businessmen we have talked to,” he added. “They are concerned that if an agreement is signed, that we could not deliver our products on time.”

In international business, as in so many other aspects of life, timing is often critical to success.

And it would be hard to imagine any recent business event that has suffered from worse timing than the Chinese Export Commodities Exhibition this week at a huge trade center next to Cleveland’s airport.

Protesters Lower Flag

The trade show, sponsored by China’s Council for the Promotion of International Trade features 50 Chinese industrial enterprises seeking to expand their exports to the United States. The show, staffed by 150 Chinese nationals, opened here last Friday with a gala, VIP luncheon attended by top Chinese trade officials--just before last weekend’s bloodshed began in the streets of Beijing.

The violent crisis in China appears to have scared away many potential American customers for the trade show’s participants.

Since the weekend, “few customers have come to look, and we have not signed any contracts,” said Shi Hongmin, vice director of Shanghai No.3 Bicycle Factory, China’s largest exporter of bicycles.

Some American import-export specialists browsing the trade show agreed that the political instability in China made them leery about making any commitments with the enterprises represented here.

“I doubt if there will be very many businessmen coming in to open a letter of credit with the Chinese any time in the next few weeks or months,” said one Cleveland-based importer who declined to give his name. “You don’t know whether the current leadership in China will be around for a day, a week or a month.”

Still, the Chinese managers of the show are sticking it out, even after a weekend protest outside their event by several hundred Chinese students studying in the Cleveland area. The students briefly lowered the Chinese flags flying outside the show to protest the violence in Beijing, after the show’s managers refused to lower them to half-staff voluntarily.

On Thursday, the show’s managers insisted that they have no plans to shut down their exhibition before the scheduled close Sunday.

Xu Chenbin, marketing director for International Pacific Exhibition, the Chinese agency managing the show, also said that the group’s scheduled show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, from Aug. 25th to Sept. 5th, will go on as planned.

Last December, the group’s 1988 Los Angeles show resulted in $70 million in sales, and Xu said Beijing doesn’t want to cancel such a potentially lucrative event.

Concern About Families

“Last night, I called Beijing to my home office, and they said all overseas exhibitions will go on as planned,” Xu said. “We have had no thoughts of canceling the show.

“From the American side, I think the businessmen are concerned about what is going on in China, but from our side, we are trying to do business as planned.”

Still, the Chinese here for the show, most of whom left China just 10 days to two weeks ago, are uncertain about what’s going on at home, and are worried about their families. Many were nervous about discussing events in China, insisting that they knew only what they had seen on American television.

But most said they still believe that the political turmoil will not have any lasting impact on trade with the United States.

They predicted that even a hard-line leadership would not turn away from China’s recent economic opening to the West.

“The open trade policy carried by China will not be changed--that is my opinion as a businessman,” said Jiang Yujun, vice chairman of International Pacific Exhibition. He also insisted that the trade show, the group’s first in Cleveland, was going better than expected.

Some Unfazed by Crisis

“Of course, the crisis is causing some problems in our conversations with American businessmen,” Jiang said. “But business is not bad. Cleveland is new for us, so we didn’t expect much.”

In fact, a few American importers with extensive experience in China were doing business here, unfazed by the crisis. Ali Alami, an import-export specialist from Youngstown, Ohio, signed an order for T-shirts with the Shiziazhuang Garment Import & Export Co. on Thursday.

Alami, who has dealt with the Chinese for three years, said the political turmoil didn’t make him think twice about buying from China again. The bottom line profit available from China is still too good to pass up.

“We haven’t had any problems so far, and their prices are still very competitive,” Alami said.