June & October 2025 | Zhuhai, China

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Max Chernov, a Singapore-based YouTuber and entrepreneur with over a million followers across his platforms and more than 200 million views to his name. He wanted to come to Zhuhai, visit Shield Works, and make a video.

What followed was two videos, published four months apart, that together attracted over 350,000 views — and sparked one of the most entertaining comment section debates I have ever seen.

Video 1: “Brit Took Me Inside a Chinese Factory… I Didn’t Expect This” Published 10 June 2025 — 202,000+ views

The first video was a personal interview. Max and I spent the day together — walking around the factory, exploring Zhuhai, talking about life in China, business, family, culture, and everything in between. The chapter headings of the video give a flavour of how wide-ranging it was: misconceptions about China, whether foreigners can build real relationships with locals, American tariffs and their effect on manufacturing, raising kids in China, life principles, the meaning of life.

Topics covered included my 20 years in China, what it is really like to build a business here, the difference between doing business in China versus the UK, TikTok refugees arriving in China, why Chinese people hold cash, the view from the GBA, and — naturally — what happens inside a British-owned factory in South China.

One of my favourite moments: Max asked me to say my favourite thing about China in Mandarin. At the 01:06 mark, apparently. You will have to watch to find out what I said.

🎥 Watch Video 1: Brit Took Me Inside a Chinese Factory… I Didn’t Expect This

Video 2: “I Went Inside a Chinese Factory… I Didn’t Expect This” Published 29 October 2025 — 145,000+ views

The second video was something genuinely different. Max decided to go further — spending a full 24 hours working inside Shield Works as a factory hand. He slept in the dormitory. He worked on the production floor. He ate in the canteen. He completed real tasks — including what he describes in the timestamps as a “dangerous task” — and experienced a full factory workday from the inside.

He toured the quality control department, the warehouse, the 3D printing facility, and — my personal favourite chapter heading — the “Secret Room at the Factory.” I will leave that one unexplained.

In Max’s own words on LinkedIn: “I decided to do something crazy — to get a job at one of the factories in China and spend 24 hours working there, having the full experience, even sleeping in the dorm. And yes, of course, we made a video about it — it’s something no one has done on YouTube before us.”

🎥 Watch Video 2: I Went Inside a Chinese Factory… I Didn’t Expect This

The Comments That Made Me Laugh

Here is the thing that I find genuinely funny about these videos. A significant portion of the comments on Video 2 — despite the cameras, the tour, the 24-hour stay, the quality control department, the warehouse, the dormitory — concluded that Shield Works must be a fake factory. Staged. A Potemkin village for YouTube.

I understand the instinct. The internet has trained people to be sceptical of anything that looks too clean, too well-organised, or too competently run in a country that is often reduced to stereotypes. Dark. Dirty. Counterfeit.

But here is the reality. Shield Works is a 100% British-owned OEM manufacturing facility operating in South China with a specific focus on IP protection, precision assembly, and quality control. It is the factory that Procter & Gamble trusts with its products. It is the factory that the British Deputy Head of Mission, the Consul-General, the Minister for Asia Pacific, and multiple senior UK government officials have toured and endorsed. It is audited, verified, and entirely real.

The fact that it does not match the mental image some people have of a Chinese factory is not evidence that it is fake. It is evidence that the mental image is wrong.

That, in a way, is the most valuable thing these videos did. More than 350,000 people watched a British man who has lived in South China for 20 years walk them through a factory that defies their expectations — and had to decide what to make of it.

Most, I think, left with a more accurate picture of what British manufacturing in China can look like when it is done properly.

Thank You to Max

Max Chernov is one of the sharpest and most thoughtful content creators working in the Asia expat space. His ability to find the human story inside a business context — and make it genuinely watchable — is a rare skill. I am grateful to him and his team for the time, the curiosity, and the generosity of spirit they brought to both videos.

And as Max put it on LinkedIn: “If you ever want to produce anything in China — this is your guy.”

I will take that.

🔗 Shield Works Precision Manufacturing 🔗 Max Chernov on YouTube 🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn

Mark Clayton FCMA CGMA CPA KOR — Group CFO, C2W Group | Chairman, British Chamber of Commerce South China