Chip Starnes

Bruce Willis failed to rescue a US factory owner held hostage in Beijing last month, forcing the American to “negotiate with terrorists,” (well, disgruntled staff).

The businessman – who boasts the characteristically ’Murican name of Chip Starnes – was winding up a medical supplies offices in Huairou by outsourcing part of the factory to India and paying 30 laid-off workers severance packages. When the GM resigned and machinery was quietly packed up during a holiday, the remaining workers suspected they were next for the chop and went on strike, demanding settlements.

As tensions rose, Starnes – 
pictured above, looking bloody miserable – was blocked from leaving and police were called. As the scenario unspooled in the media, the Wall Street Journal reported “police were bringing him three hot meals a day… but had declined to free him.”

“Holding a manager hostage isn’t an unusual practice,” a former AmCham chairman told the New York Times. As China’s economic juggernaut slows, the country has seen an increase in such scenarios as workers seek to protect their rights; during the 2008 global crash, hundreds of bankrupt bosses defaulted on wages.

In the event, Starnes spent six days negotiating with officials before signing agreements, 
although Starnes claimed the 100 jobs remaining weren’t even in danger. While his detention was extra-legal, cadres probably feared the situation could spiral out of control if Starnes left and aggrieved workers then took their protests further.

As for Starnes, he’s now safely back in the US, where he told the Miami Herald that he would probably return but the episode had “changed his perspective on doing business in China.”