Why Japan and the West Have So Many Century-Old Companies—and What Chinese Firms Can Learn

When people talk about century-old companies, Japan usually comes up first. Not by accident. Teikoku Databank’s 2024 survey counted 45,284 Japanese companies that were more than 100 years old as of September 2024. It also found 1,813 firms older than 200 years, 47 older than 500 years, and 11 older than 1,000 years. Even in global business history, those numbers are extraordinary.

China is not a country without old brands, commercial traditions, or durable business families. But if the question is narrowed to modern corporations that have preserved a relatively continuous operating entity, ownership chain, and governance structure across a century, China has far fewer. The explanation is not simply cultural. It has a lot to do with historical interruption, institutional maturity, and the way different societies separate ownership, control, and management.

Why Japan produces so many long-lived firms

The easy answer is “craftsmanship,” but that is only part of the story. Japan has produced so many long-lived firms because, over a long stretch of history, it offered a relatively strong social environment for continuity.

First, continuity itself mattered. Japan certainly went through war, crisis, and long periods of stagnation. But in many local industries—inns, brewing, confectionery, religious construction, tools, regional food, ceremonial goods—the operating entity often survived from one generation to the next. A firm did not need to become huge. It just had to keep its name, its customers, its methods, its assets, and its reputation intact.

That financial conservatism is not a romantic detail; it is part of the survival formula. Teikoku Databank’s 2024 report explicitly noted that non-operating income from real estate and financial assets contributed to the financial stability of Japanese long-established firms. In plain terms: many of these businesses kept buffers. They did not assume the core business would always carry everything.

Second, succession in Japan has often been more practical than outsiders assume. Long-lived firms did not always insist on a biological son as heir. Public historical material on Kongō Gumi, the construction firm founded in 578, notes that sons-in-law were sometimes brought into the family and took the Kongō name when needed. The principle was continuity of the house and the business, not rigid adherence to one inheritance form. That flexibility matters more than people think.

Third, many Japanese firms did not treat rapid scale as the highest goal. Their path was often narrower and deeper: mastering one trade, protecting one reputation, and staying profitable across long cycles. A sake brewer, a ryokan, a confectioner, a temple carpenter, or a knife maker may not look glamorous on a modern venture-capital map. But such firms often operate in markets where quality, trust, and repeatability can be handed down across generations.

That said, Japanese longevity is not invincibility. Kongō Gumi eventually became a subsidiary of Takamatsu Construction Group in 2006. If anything, that makes the lesson more realistic: a century-old firm survives not because it never changes, but because it is willing to change form in order to preserve what matters most.

Why Western century-old firms often look different

The United States and Europe also have many century-old companies, but their mechanism of survival often differs from Japan’s. In Japan, long life frequently looks like continuity of the family business. In the West, especially among large companies, long life often looks like continuity of the institution.

In other words, the family does not always remain in the CEO chair. Instead, control is preserved through equity structure, trusts, foundations, board appointments, and voting arrangements, while day-to-day management is handed to professional executives.

That is the key to a question many people ask: if the family is no longer visibly running the company, how can it still control it? The answer is that control does not depend on sitting in the operating seat. Control comes from deciding who sits in the operating seat—and from retaining authority over the board, major votes, and strategic direction.

How professional managers run the company while families keep control

One common method is dual-class shares.

The New York Times Company is a clean example. According to its 2026 proxy statement, the company has a dual-class structure. Public investors hold Class A shares, while the core control function rests with Class B shares controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family trust. Class A stockholders elect 4 of the company’s 13 directors; Class B stockholders elect 9 of the 13. The CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien, is a professional manager. But the family trust still controls the board majority mechanism. The family does not need to manage the newsroom or the subscription operation directly every day. It holds the power to shape who governs the institution.

A second model is concentrated family ownership combined with professional management.

Walmart fits this pattern. Walmart is a public company run through a modern executive system; its CEO is John Furner. Yet the Walton family retains decisive long-term influence through large ownership and board presence. Walmart’s 2025 proxy statement says the board considers it appropriate, given the Walton family’s significant and long-term share ownership, for the family to maintain limited but continuing representation on the board. At present, two Walton family members serve as directors. The point is not whether a family member is CEO. The point is that ownership and board influence allow the family to shape leadership standards, strategic direction, and institutional culture without personally running the operating machine.

A third model separates economic rights from voting control through trusts and foundations.

Bosch is one of the clearest European examples. According to the Robert Bosch Stiftung’s published constitutional structure, the foundation holds 94% of the shares in Robert Bosch GmbH, the Bosch family’s ERBO II GmbH holds 5%, and Robert Bosch GmbH itself holds 1%. But voting rights are different: 93% are exercised by Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG, an industrial trust, while the Bosch family holds 7%. That means dividend rights and control rights are deliberately structured in different places. The company is run by professional management, including CEO Stefan Hartung, while the long-term mission and control architecture are stabilized by trust law and institutional design.

A fourth method uses special share classes and voting trusts.

Ford’s 2025 proxy statement says that, as of February 1, 2025, 99.90% of Ford’s Class B stock was held in a voting trust of perpetual duration. Day-to-day operations are handled by management, but the control mechanism has not been allowed to dissolve into the public float. Again, the lesson is straightforward: a company can modernize its management without erasing its control structure.

Why China has relatively fewer century-old corporations

It is true that many Chinese companies are simply younger. But that answer is too shallow on its own. A more serious answer is that China’s modern corporate era is comparatively recent, and continuity itself has been harder to preserve.

Over the past century and more, China went through war, regime change, periods of planned economy, restructuring of property rights, and then market rebuilding after reform and opening-up. Many old brands survived in name. Many skills survived in craft memory. But the continuity of the legal entity, the ownership chain, the governance system, and the capital structure was often interrupted or remade.

Even the legal basis for modern company governance came relatively late. The English text of the Company Law of the People’s Republic of China, as published by the Supreme People’s Court website, states that the law was adopted in 1993. That means many of China’s best-known private companies have spent less than four decades inside a modern company-law framework. By historical standards, that is not long.

So the relative scarcity of Chinese century-old corporations is not mainly evidence of weak entrepreneurs. It reflects a shorter period of institutional continuity, less time under stable modern corporate rules, and a much more interrupted commercial history.

What Chinese companies should learn—not copy mechanically

First, they should learn to treat a company as a time project, not merely as a wealth opportunity.

Many Chinese firms have been exceptionally good at growth: finding openings, scaling quickly, and winning markets. That capability matters. But the skills that build a large company are not automatically the skills that build a hundred-year company. Century-old firms are judged by harder questions: can the organization survive the founder, survive an industry downturn, survive the second and third generation, and preserve order under stress?

Second, Chinese firms should learn to separate ownership, governance, and management.

This is where many founder-led businesses remain fragile. In a large number of companies, the founder still concentrates final decision-making, financing relationships, senior hiring, customer trust, and strategic judgment in one person. That can be efficient during a growth sprint. It becomes dangerous in succession. Japan’s lesson is that continuity requires a stable order of inheritance. America’s and Europe’s lesson is that continuity can also be built through boards, trusts, foundations, differentiated voting rights, and professional executive systems. China does not need to copy any one model exactly, but it does need clear answers to these questions: who owns the company, who appoints the board, who runs the business, who supervises management, and what happens after the founder steps back?

Third, Chinese firms should stop treating succession as a narrow family question.

The Japanese lesson is that succession can be flexible as long as capability and credibility are preserved. The American and European lesson is that a family can remain the controlling force even when it no longer runs the business directly. Too many succession discussions still begin with one question: “Will the founder’s child take over?” That is not the first question. The first question is whether the family wants to retain control at all. If yes, through what mechanism? If no, how will the family retreat safely from management while preserving value at the governance level?

Fourth, Chinese firms should relearn financial restraint.

Teikoku Databank’s work on Japanese long-established firms contains a detail worth emphasizing: non-operating income from property and financial assets contributes meaningfully to stability. Stripped of jargon, the message is simple. Business cycles turn. Demand weakens. Industry leaders make mistakes. A company that wants to survive decades needs cash buffers, moderate leverage, durable assets, and room to absorb shocks. Some Chinese firms over the past several years did not fail because they lacked opportunity. They failed because expansion was too fast, leverage was too high, and the balance sheet was too thin.

Fifth, Chinese firms should recover a serious respect for reputation.

The greatest danger to a century-old company is not slowness. It is the temptation to trade a hundred years of trust for one or two years of aggressive revenue. Japanese long-lived firms are conservative partly because they understand credit and reputation as inherited assets. Many durable Western firms treat governance, compliance, and brand protection in the same way. Any Chinese company that genuinely wants to become a century-old institution will eventually have to move from “how big can we get?” to “what must we never damage?”

The real divide is not family rule versus professional managers

There is a common misunderstanding here. People often imagine that Japan means family members always stay in direct command, while the United States means that once professional managers arrive, the family disappears. Neither picture is quite right.

Japan’s core strength is not simply family control; it is respect for succession order and continuity. The Western strength is not family withdrawal; it is the institutionalization of control. One path treats the company more like a house to be handed down. The other treats it more like a governing system to be preserved. The paths differ. The goal is the same: the company should not collapse when one person exits.

That is the lesson China can use. The point is not to become “more Japanese” or “more American.” The point is to start building, from the first generation onward, a structure that can outlive the founder. Once companies start doing that seriously, century-old firms will not appear overnight. But they will stop being rare accidents.

Sources

• Teikoku Databank, 2024 survey on long-established Japanese firms: 45,284 firms older than 100 years as of September 2024.
• The New York Times Company, 2026 Proxy Statement: Class A stockholders elect 4 of 13 directors; Class B stockholders elect 9 of 13; Class B is controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family trust.
• Walmart Inc., 2025 Proxy Statement: the board states that limited but continuing Walton family board representation is appropriate given the family’s significant and long-term ownership.
• Robert Bosch Stiftung, “The Bosch Constitution”: 94% foundation shareholding, 5% Bosch family via ERBO II GmbH, 1% company-owned shares; 93% voting rights with Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG and 7% with the Bosch family.
• Ford Motor Company, 2025 Proxy Statement: as of February 1, 2025, 99.90% of Class B stock was held in a voting trust of perpetual duration.
• Supreme People’s Court website, “Company Law of the People’s Republic of China”: the law was adopted in 1993.
• Public historical material on Kongō Gumi: continuity across many generations, including the practice of sons-in-law taking the family name when necessary.