BOOK
REVIEW How to talk business in
China The Chinese
Negotiator by Robert M March
and Wu Su-hua
Reviewed by Michael
Jen-Siu
Tim Cole, a magician from Las
Vegas, Nevada, met me in a Beijing coffee shop
about two years ago and said he had been cheated
out of US$127,000 because his Chinese business
partner canceled several performances in violation
of their contract. The partner also stuck Cole
with the trans-Pacific shipping bill for the show
equipment, he told me.
His story followed
a series of interviews I had done with the
owners of a Hong Kong
engineering company that lost a large hotel to
court receivership in Dandong, northeastern China,
because the Dandong partner tried to pass off its
own loans on the Hong Kong side.
I
remember these two cases because they go against
the overwhelming majority of China business news
stories, which generally follow China's fast-track
investment deregulation and the natural flood of
foreign businesses entering an anticipated
record-
sized consumer market. But the magician and
the engineering firm showed paperwork to prove
that they had been cheated despite the hype.
The Chinese Negotiator, a topically
overdue book published this year, suggests that
the magician or the engineering firms might have
misunderstood their Chinese counterparts when they
agreed to do business together. Maybe Cole or the
engineering firm upset their local partners during
contract negotiations, I started to imagine. Maybe
they didn't even have a solid enough deal before
business began.
Authors Robert March, a
negotiator and consultant since 1985, and Wu
Su-hua, an entrepreneur for 25 years in Taiwan and
Australia, provide 280 pages of tips on how to
negotiate with teams of stoic chain-smokers who
don't say what they're thinking. They tell foreign
companies to negotiate according to a 12-step
process and to pick a team with refined social
graces and a taste for Chinese food. They explain
why foreign teams must come to the table as a
unified front but with a clear leader and every
other member assigned non-conflicting
responsibilities to avoid the appearance of
uncertainty or risk spilling sensitive details too
soon.
More important, The Chinese
Negotiator shares scores of subtle,
example-rich insights about Chinese versus
non-Chinese psychology in language that
brilliantly transcends stereotypes. These lessons
could help almost anyone get along in any
Sino-foreign environment, whether as a negotiator,
a boss or a common employee. The authors point out
that overlooking these subtleties during a
contract negotiation can quietly offend the
Chinese side, which in turn might sign with a
competing foreign firm or plot revenge against the
offending party.
March and Wu note, for
example, that Western negotiators bristle too
obviously when deals don't come together soon
enough and do not see how non-business chats over
alcohol can improve later negotiations. Chinese,
for their part, are as flexible as street-market
vendors, take a shared-destiny view of joint
ventures, and may look to an absentee boss far
removed from the negotiations for serious contract
decisions, even after deals are struck at the
table. They also subconsciously use any of 36
classic Chinese war stratagems that promote
deception, secrecy and elaborate mind games to get
what they want.
The book's top lessons,
threads that bind one chapter to the next, are
that interpersonal trust must precede business,
that the Chinese value a harmonious negotiation
atmosphere (despite their own poker faces), and
that negotiations can last much longer than
foreigners expect - though we're never told
exactly how long. Another piece of repeated
advice: foreigners should avoid talking too much
about business in opening negotiation rounds so
the parties first get to know each other
personally.
The Chinese Negotiator
leaves one big red elephant in the negotiating
room. That's the profound influence of China's
government. Almost every day of my seven years in
China, as a reporter or a colleague or a teacher
or just someone in the street, I met with the
nationalism of modern Chinese people. Much of
their distrust, resentment or superiority toward
foreigners stems directly from the government's
relentless teachings in school or through media
that Chinese are historically superior people
victimized by foreigners.
The government
promotes especially strong anti-Japan sentiment
and the questionable idea that ethnic Chinese
inside and outside China are all the same except
that outside they're lucky to be rich. Before
2000, it was legal to overcharge foreigners at
government tourist landmarks. These prejudices are
not checked at the negotiation-room doors. Local
courts normally back the Chinese side in any
dispute, another sign of us-versus-them
nationalism. And because of China's
non-consultative policymaking and lack of public
participation in government, many laws touted as
business-friendly via government-run
English-language media are vague, redundant and
even contradictory.
Cole or the Hong Kong
engineering firm might have blundered in their
negotiations, but they could easily have been
cheated out of sheer resentment, or fallen into
the red through a legal gray area. The Chinese
Negotiator might have noted the state's
formative role in Chinese psychology and advised
companies on how to reach sound, cheat-resistant
business agreements that have the flexibility to
withstand undulating local laws on key matters
such as currency conversion and patent protection.
Key foreign countries are also missing
from the book. Most of the advisory anecdotes
feature firms from developed Western countries,
but what about growing powerhouses such South
Korea or Russia, where business cultures differ,
likewise stereotypes held by the Chinese? And if I
were a sole proprietor magician or hotelier,
rather than a company with a big staff, I'd want
to know how to negotiate against a complex Chinese
organization without hiring a team. Is there a
network of negotiators for hire?
Finally,
The Chinese Negotiator could further
explore China with a few more anecdotes from the
book's namesake. Experienced contract negotiators
at the foreign-affairs offices of state companies
or the poker-faced Chinese bargainers who quietly
evaluate their foreign counterparts across a table
might tell revealing stories about what it's like
on the home court.
Influential Chinese
people do not always open up to foreign writers,
but some will talk, especially if contacted
through personal connections. Chinese sources also
might offer details on how they arrange room,
board and meeting venues for the negotiators - and
who pays for it all. Maybe we would learn that
some Chinese publisher is about to release "The
Foreign Negotiator".
The Chinese
Negotiator: How to Succeed in the World's Largest
Market by Robert M March and Wu Su-hua.
Kodansha International, February 2007. ISBN-10:
4770030282. Price US$24.95 hardback, 280 pages.
Michael Jen-Siu is a
wire-service reporter living in Taipei.
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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sized consumer market. But the magician and
the engineering firm showed paperwork to prove
that they had been cheated despite the hype.
