Managing International Business in China by Tian Xiaowen

Author:Tian, Xiaowen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2016-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

It is not an exaggeration to say that almost all foreign negotiators have similar experiences when they visit China to negotiate a deal with Chinese partners.

Some Western negotiators are frustrated by this hospitality. Some American negotiators, for instance, are suspicious of the true intention behind the hospitality, feeling that ‘the Chinese consciously use such slowdown techniques as bargaining ploys because they believe they can exploit a natural American tendency for impatience’ (Pye 1992: 16). By playing this kind of so-called ‘home court advantage’, they think, the Chinese can intentionally control the pace, agenda, timing and place of the negotiation process, making Western negotiators become impatient. Then the impatient Western negotiators may begin to say too much about their opinions about the deal, and reveal details of their plans to the Chinese side during sightseeing and dinners. Thus, when the negotiations finally start, the Chinese side is well prepared, while the impatient Western negotiators, knowing nothing about the Chinese side and in a state of exhaustion, are completely at a loss. It seems that the Chinese negotiators are employing one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems – ‘Await leisurely the exhausted enemy’ (see management focus 7.1).

Chinese hospitality can indeed be a stratagem in some circumstances, but it is not so most of the time. In a sense, the Chinese view of hospitality is deeply rooted in the Confucian tradition. As stated previously, one of the Five Constant Virtues of Confucianism is li (propriety, rituals and rules of conduct), which often translates into hospitality in dealing with visitors, particularly visitors from afar. One of the Confucian teachings requires people to treat visitors from afar nicely, as shown in the popular Chinese saying ‘isn’t it a delight that friends come from afar’ (you peng zi yuanfang lai, buyi lehu). Furthermore, as stated previously, Confucianism emphasizes interpersonal trust, friendship and guanxi. Chinese hospitality often represents an effort on the Chinese side to establish trustful friendship with foreign negotiators before the formal negotiation starts.

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