Negotiating with Chinese

Negotiating with Chinese

Introduction

When a company want to establish in China they have to follow some

unwritten rules based on the cultural development China´s. You cannot

come to China and doing business as you know it from Germany. That

will not work. The chinese people will misunderstand you. In this

assay I will give some informations about chinese negotiating methods

and how western people can manage it, where they have to be careful. I

chose this topic because in my opinion this is very important for

doing business in China where you can see heavily the cultural

differences between China and western countries. My assay will give

information about this topic from the the first contact over the

negotiation process to what may happen after the contract is signed.

Getting in contact with Chinese companies

Before you can negotiate with anyone you need to know with whom you

can do business in China. There are different ways to get in contact

with Chinese companies.

- getting in contact with the “Außenhandelsgesellschaft” in Shanghai

- contact the responsible ministry

- trade fairs/exhibitions

- specific lectures, lecture travel to institutes/universities/ministries

- private advice companies with seat in Hongkong

- finding a chinese single person who have good contacts (guanxi)

- advertise in magazines and newspapers

- contact Chinese great companies of the same branch and try to get in

direct contact with them or to get informations about other possible

partners

- contact an other german company who already established their

business in china and asking them to work as a contact person to china

- asking the german embassy in china

- speak to homebank, consolidated companies, chamber of industry and

commerce

These different ways to get into china are in a way ranked as how

important or effectful they are in my opinion.

Pre-Negotiation

Negotiation with Chinese or getting in the first contact with Chinese

can be made in several ways like mentioned above. The Chinese

negotiation process starts with contacts with the Chinese partners.

The Chinese are first of all interested in getting to know the other

party during first initial contacts. They try to determine whether or

not the foreign firm has:

- the most advanced technology required for their project, art of

business

- the willingness...

... middle of paper ...

...s not as worse as it

in my assay sometimes seems to be. If you know and understand the

cultural differences as a western person it is not easy but you will

make good negotiations because in my opinion it is naive to think that

chinese people do not know what your values are. They know as much as

you know about them so they know that you manage the things in your

country in another way round. So if you make a mistake I am sure

chinese people will "forgive" (if it is not a part of the negotiating

tactic to bring you in embarrassments with your mistakes). Very

important maybe most important in my opinion is the face because this

is also very important for the chinese. Do not lose ones face. That is

for a chinese people often not really forgiveable. The worst case what

may happen if you let a chinese negotiating partner lose his face is

that the negotiating process finish immediately. So this in my opinion

one of the most important thing western people have to take care of in

the negotiating process.

Last I want to say that it was very interesting to work on this assay

because I got a further inside view through chinese negotiating and

with this the chinese culture.