Yesterday I sat down with the irrepressible Jean-Claude Biver, head of Hublot SA, for an afternoon chat at the Four Seasons Hotel. It was a brief meeting–Biver was on his way to Paris later that evening–but we covered good ground about Hublot’s prospects in China and what counterfeiting means to the watch industry (more on that later).

A dynamic gentleman who prefers navy mechanic-like button-up jackets to the traditional suit and tie approach, Biver was born in Luxembourg but moved to Switzerland when he was a child. He loves the tradition of Swiss-made timepieces–and says China is the emerging market for Hublot, which is the only Swiss watchmaker without a real presence there. China currently accounts for 0.9% of Hublot turnover, while Asia on the whole accounts for 12%; Europe about 40%; the Americas about 40%; and the Middle East the rest.)

Biver traveled to China twice last month and will continue once- or twice-monthly visits there, to various cities, for the foreseeable future. The group plans to open 12 new boutiques in China in the next 12 months; it will open its first one in Beijing later this month.

As you’ll see if you read through to the bottom of this post, Biver is an equal-opportunity commenter when it comes to observing global cultures: He manages to knock East Germans for being “useless” after the Berlin wall came down, laud the Japanese for their “rational irrationality,” highlight the Chinese lack of “conscience” (he means taste) when it comes to choosing a watch, and bemoan the fact that the French don’t care how often you come to Paris. All in one fell swoop.

Here’s part of our conversation:

Hannah Elliott: You’ve got big plans for Hublot in China next year. Why go now, rather than several years ago when your competitors did?
Jean-Claude Biver: Because now we feel ready. You cannot go to a market as long as you are not ready to put full power, full speed and all your energy into that market. And when you have to restructure a brand like we did, you cannot restructure the whole world at the same time. It’s impossible.

You know you have to go from one country to the other one. Which country are you going to take care of first, the countries that are the furthest away from your home, the countries that are the most difficult to understand, the countries that have languages that have nothing to do with ours, or are you going to take care of the countries that are next to you, that are very close, very easy, that speak same language, have some religion, have same culture? The answer is given. So we started with the countries we knew the best.

There is another thing if you go to China. If you go to Brazil, it is different, but if the Chinese guy doesn’t pay you, you have nearly zero chances to get your money back. You cannot sue in these countries. In America, if somebody doesn’t pay you, you can sue him. You will not find your money back, but at least there is some legal action.

We decided to go to China only when we would be ready–ready by having accomplished our homework in home markets. America is a home market even though it is on the other side of the Atlantic. It it is easy to talk to an American. It is easy to understand his language. It’s easy to understand his philosophy.

We are starting from an exceptional position–you must either be the best or you must be absent. When you are absent, nobody will blame you if you are not the best. But if you are participating and you are No. 5, then you are a poor man. It’s better to be out of the game than to be in the game and be average. So at least now we can say we are the only nonexistent brand, so we have a very remarkable position–the only non-existing Swiss watch brand in China. Of course, the potential of growth is phenomenal!

HE: What challenges are there in terms of distributing your product?
JCB: No challenge. Much easier than America, because in China everything is moving. Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue are not moving. They are there. Boom. Static. Shops are there but nothing there. It’s established. In China it’s everything is growing. Everything is moving from one center to the other one. Bam bam bam. So you have huge opportunities to open shops.

HE: What does the Chinese buyer want in a watch?
JCB: It depends who he is. If he is the average Chinese, he wants everything except Hublot because he hates Hublot! He hates Hublot because Hublot is a deconstructed brand. It’s a brand that doesn’t look like a watch. It looks like a strange thing. The Hublot design and the Hublot material and the Hublot colors are out of the box. It’s not at all what you think of for a watch: “Why would a watch look like this?! That’s not what I think about a watch.” So the Chinese regular customer will never buy a Hublot watch, but once he has bought two, three, four, five watches, he will discover that after the fifth one, they are all more or less the same and they are all more or less a little bit boring. And then he will go for out of the box. And then he will go for Hublot. He will buy Hublot.

So the Chinese standard customer is not ready yet for Hublot. He must first buy some regular merchandise and slowly slowly develop his conscience, his taste. And then he comes to Hublot.

HE: How long until that happens?
JCB: It will take much less time than we all believe because China has a phenomenal speed of catch-up. The catch-up possibility potential of China is phenomenal. Why? Because in the world “China” is not in China. The Chinese community has been existing for a hundred years all over the world. They are in New York, they are in Toronto, they are in Paris. They are everywhere because the Chinese family doesn’t live in China. Of course 1.4 billion live in China–but they all have connections outside China, so they all get exactly the feeling what is happening outside China.

Some communist states from Russia, they had a barrier. Or in Berlin, they had a wall. They were cut from the world. The Chinese were never cut because they have a huge community outside China, and they have big families who they always communicate with. So China always gets very easily what happened in the world.

And they are quite clever people–there’s another point! I have nothing against East Germany, but this German guy 25 years ago when you had the wall of Berlin, he was useless. He had been cut off from reality, cut off from communications. Everything. They were even not working–they were believing in communism, not working. The Chinese are just opposite. They are entrepreneurs. They are gamblers. They take risks. They work 24 hours if necessary. They don’t say, “I want holidays.” They don’t come ask for the job and then second question, “How much holiday do we have?” Third question, “What’s the retirement pension?” Then fourth question, “What do I do when my wife gets pregnant?”

When we say that it will take 10 years–pfffft. This is purely theoretical. I don’t know how much it will take. I know it will take less than you think.

HE: Okay, so moving on to a very different market in Asia–Japan. It’s gone down a bit lately for some luxury providers. How is it for Hublot?
JCB: Good. Very good. We have a market share of 3.5% there. We increase every year. The competition is losing a lot in Japan. We are probably one of the rare brands that are increasing by 15% every year in Japan.

HE: Why has Hublot done well while others have not?
JCB: The Japanese in their irrationality are very rational. It means they love to understand what you do. And what we do they understand. When we say we make fusion: We combine the past and the future. Very few people know what it means. You always have to give examples with the guitar, with architecture, because people don’t know what it means.

The Japanese, they are very clever. They understand. And once they understand, they will support your brand. They like to buy what they understand, even if after that they cannot necessarily understand why it is so expensive. That’s why I always say they are the most rational in their irrationality.

HE: You visit Japan often, don’t you?
JCB: I have been 35 years in Japan. I’ve been 150 times to Japan. They have a lot of respect for old people–or for experienced people. They respect it when you go very often. They have a respect. In Europe I tell them I’m 55 times in France and they say, “So what? That’s your problem. I don’t care.” It will not help you because you came 55 times to Paris. A Japanese, he will feel proud, and he will want to give you back. So all this together probably makes Hublot a good brand in Japan.