Chinese Business Negotiation Style

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(1). Six Dimensions of Chinese Business Negotiation Style

In this section, I will talk about six dimensions of Chinese business negotiation style which represent six primary patterns of Chinese business negotiating behiors: political, legal, technical, mercial, social, and strategic dimensions. Political behior concerns how Chinese business decision- making process is influenced by Chinese politics; legal behior deals with the Chinese attitude toward contracting and other legal arrangement; technical behior concerns the Chinese attitude toward technology, technical specification, quality and so on; mercial behior refers to how the Chinese bargain about price and other economic arrangements; social behior refers to how the Chinese establish trust toward the other part through personal contacts and other forms of social interactions both verbal and non verbal during the negotiation process; and finally, strategic behior shows how the Chinese manipulate various negotiating stratagems.

This dimensional analysis also suggests that Chinese negotiating style involve both rational and strategic patterns. Political, legal, technical, mercial and social patterns or dimensions represent rational Chinese negotiating behior, whereas the strategic pattern or dimension constitutes strategic Chinese negotiating behior or say Chinese negotiating tactics.

1. political behior:

The Chinese government is the real negotiator, customer, and ultimate decision maker; Chinese panies must follow the governments plan and policies to do business.

The frontline Chinese negotiators he a limited mandate and fear criticism; inter-anizational munication within the Chinese negotiating anization is usually poor, and the Chinese negotiating team tends to be large.

Business in China, whether Chinese or foreign, is under the control of the Chinese government; Chinese business is governed by the political book. Chinese patterners are protected under the umbrella of Chinese bureaucracy.

2. Legal behior:

The Chinese view contracting as an intial intention and an onging problem-solving framework rather than a one-off nicely wrapped legal package.

The Chinese awareness of law is normally blunt, and its legal system is young. Chinese lawyers seldom participate in face-to-face meetings, although recently they he begun to increasingly appear.

The Chinese tend to insist that arbitration, if any, is to be held in china.

3. Tech

nical behior:

The Chinese want to cooperate with large, technologically strong panies.

The Chinese want to buy the most advanced and research-and-

development-oriented technology, apart from price, technology is other major issue in Chinese business negotiation.

The basic Chinese attitude toward foreign technology transfer to China is to exchange the Chinese market for foreign technology. However, when talk about the above three point, when must notice that the attitude of Chinese panies toward technology is changing: most Chinese panies are the more and more profit-oriented.

4. mercial behior:

The Chinese tend to choose large and financially strong foreign panies with which to cooperate.

The Chinese are extremely price sensitive; Chinese business negotiation is essentially a negotiation about price and technology.

The Chinese panies insist on hing the majority share of equity in a Sino-foreign business joint venture.

5. Social behior:

There is a pre-negotiation phase in the Chinese business negotiation process in which the Chinese try to establish trust and confidence in the other party through information gathering, personal contacts and other social activities.

The Chinese attach great importance to sincerity and reputation on the part of foreign side.

Chinese negotiating style is generally people-oriented and permeated with such Confucian notions of guanxi, renqing, li, face, family, age, hierarchy, and harmony etc.

6. Strategic behior:

ji or Chinese stratagems exists in the mentality of Chinese negotiation.

The Chinese may employ negotiating tactics deliberately or inadvertently.

Chinese business negotiating tactics empirically evident in the supplementary materials I ge to you. But here I must mind you that we Chinese people are clever, friendly but we he our own moral standard or behioral code which guided us what we can do and what we cannot do.

When paring the six dimensions of Chinese business negotiating style with the western theory of business negotiation, you may find that there are stark contrasts in the political, legal and strategic dimensions of Chinese business negotiating behiors. Most remarkable is the strong political feature in Chinese business negotiation. The decisive influence of the Chinese government and Chinese bureaucracy on the behior of Chinese negotiators constitutes a major difference between Chinese and western business negotiating styles.