Negotiation in China

The negotiation

The negotiation in China is made on a specific mode. It is essential not to lose its cool and to remain patient during the negotiations.
Business relationships are before any long-term relations implying a confidence and even a common friendship. They are punctuated by numerous dinners, toasts and long interviews.
The identification of an interlocutor having the required qualities is essential at the risk of losing several months, even several years for nothing.
The first gesture during a meeting is the exchange of business cards (card turned to the interlocutor, in two hands).
The given word is a fundamental notion in China, but the signature of a contract remains essential.
The negotiation implies that there is not of losing

How Chinese negotiate with French

For reasons at the same time historic, political and sentimental, France benefits in China of a real capital of confidence and sympathy, which you should not hesitate to exploit. We are besides credited with excellent technical skills, sometimes better than those were attributed in Americans, and of an unequalled innovative potential.

In fact the major difficulty is most of the time the cultural obstacle, with which are confronted all the western companies in China, which is their size or the business sector in whom they intervene. The French people often behave as if they were the most representative sample of the universal humanity and this French "smugness" annoys particularly
Chinese, even if themselves is not outdone on the ground of the national pride and the feeling of superiority. Undoubtedly, the Chinese are proud of their culture and attached to the values which it carries; in the difference near that they do not claim to impose them to the others, but also that they have a deep consciousness of the relativity and the movement of things, ups and downs.

How French can negotiate with Chinese

Many French see in Chinese businessman of very hardly négotiateurs and feel threatened. The least introduced or the most naive think of warning the danger by frontal attacks. Most of the others begin a trench warfare. In both cases, they are wrong of strategy and choose the bad ground. The Chinese become formidable only when their interlocutors put on the uniform of the fighter. In reality, the level of the Chinese negotiators is extremely variable. The sharpness or the spirit of guile which we attribute to the Chinese is unevenly distributed.

In well led negotiations, the first stage of the discussions will aim at determining at the opposing party these not negotiable points. During this phase, the Chinese develop their skill in the art of the covering of the ground and the travel. Supplied questioning and crusader, under diverse angles to whom will be added some laborers of provocation or blocking persisted to arouse your reactions. Most probably, several Chinese interlocutors will take turns in the course of days, even weeks, to test as long the coherence of your proposes, that the resistance of your nerves. It will not be rare that the Chinese question then what will have been said the day before.

Frequently the French negotiators are faulted on two points. A tactical error at first, which consists in taking care of the ground of the opponent rather than with working on its own ground. Try " to explain " to the opposing party where are situated its interests and how it should redefine its position does not appear the best way to protect its own defense, nor to convince moreover. A big strategic fuzziness comes then. No axis of defense, no impassable border result: after hard skirmishes and some psychodramas the French people release everything, and often much more than the Chinese could not hope for it.

Forbes

Harvard