Westerners Chinese Negotiation Failure

Dr Bob March Answered:

Q1: I assume that this means "fail to reach agreement". There are dozens of possible causes. Here are a few common reasons:

• Failure to develop friendly, trusting relationships with the Chinese
• Failure to understand what the Chinese really want from an agreement
• The Chinese team has not developed a coherent set of demands because they have conflicts within their own team
• There is no one in the foreign team to guide them on understanding the Chinese and / or they do not believe that they need any special counsel on the Chinese
• The foreigners set themselves unrealistic timetables (e.g. three days in and out) to reach an agreement

Q2:

• Unprepared for negotiating with the Chinese. Think negotiation will be more or less just like back home
• Foreign ego - think they will out-gun, out-negotiate the Chinese
• Lack of trust of the Chinese, and probably lack of human understanding
• Inadequate interpreting of what the Chinese position, and / or of the foreign position to the Chinese
• When the negotiation issues are highly political for the Chinese, then first, the foreign team needs to know that, for they are likely to stall discussions, and / or introduce new parties (especially government officials at village, county or provincial level), change their demands, etc.
• The foreigners do have inadequate or zero professional counsel on the day to day behavior (and its real meaning) of the Chinese side
• Not adjusting to their sojourn in China. Suffering culture shock, especially "hating the food".

My book, "The Chinese Negotiator" (Kodansha International, 2007) ISBN 978-4-7700-3028-3, contains much guidance on these questions, including twenty detailed successful and unsuccessful case studies.