China Business Relations Guideline for Foreigners

Overview

Being able to effectively establish a healthy business relation can be complicated. When you add in language barriers and cultural differences it can seem near impossible. Yet, people are and have been successfully establishing international business relations and more and more international business are continually opening to the world everyday. This Guideline will serve as a compass to those looking to Navigate their way around the obstacles presented in establishing such business relations with Chinese companies.

Being Aware of Cultural Differences

Treat their business card as if it was sacred, if they hand it to you with two hands receive it with two hands, and never put it in your back pocket, if you have a breast pocket or a pocket in your shirt that would be the place to put it, in other words treat that card like you want to treat the person who handed it to you.

Gift giving is a common practice of the Chinese business culture, giving and receiving gifts helps to cement relationships, put some thought and effort into the gift selection process.

The Dos

Do favors for people - debts must always be repaid.

Always show respect to people older than you, and also to those that have more experience than you.

Turn that frown upside down, showing a smile shows that you are respectable and want to establish a relationship with your potential business partner.

The Don'ts

"American and Chinese Flags"

do not make people 'lose face' in front of their group. Losing face means that you are causing someone to lose respect with their peers or that whatever happened made them lose status.

do not openly disagree with people, if you have a disagreement with someone in a business meeting come to them privately with your concerns.

Sealing the Deal

Friends First Business Later

In America, they way business is done, the people involved don't really have to like each other to trust each other, however in China friendship comes before trust, and trust needs to be established before business is done. Very often many meetings will be used in order to establish a relationship and build on that relationship rather than to discuss the supposed business at hand.

The Time it Takes

To make any kind of progress in doing business in China, don't be too alarmed if a lot of business is not being talked during your preliminary meetings, It can be many long meetings before any kind of progress is made. Patience and Timing are key in moving any kind of deal along.

Communication for Non-Mandarin Chinese Speakers

Not too Fast

It is important that you speak clearly and slowly for you Interpreter, breaking up what you want to say one sentence at a time, while more time consuming, is the better choice.

The more your Interpreter can get across the smoother building relationships and negotiating contracts will be.

Careful What You Say

Idioms, jokes and colloquialisms vary across languages and cultures, not that often are they similar, because of this they do not translate, while some cultures idioms and jokes have similar meanings, the words to express these meanings almost all the time become lost in translation, so it is better to stay away from these things and be to the point while being sensitive to the culture you are doing business in.

Just because you don't speak the language of the people you want to do business with does not necessarily mean that they don't speak yours be mindful of what you say on the side of what you want your interpreter to say.

Resources

ASTM International. Business Success in China. 2001. Web. http://www.astm.org/BIZLINK/BusLinkA01/Chan.html , accessed 25, April 2013

World Business Culture. Business Culture in China. 2012. Web. http://www.worldbusinessculture.com/Chinese-Business-Negotiation.html , accessed 25, April 2013