Shang hai World Expo china pavilion

4 min read

Expo 2010 Shanghai had a huge impact on the business world, perhaps just as important as that of the Beijing olympics in 2008. Expo 2010 reflects China today, a major league player who aspires to end up winning not by getting singles and stolen bases but by scoring nothing but home runs, one after the other, with long throws intended to leave the home field and arrive in all corners of the world. Zhong-guo(Central Country), having been more or less completely shut off for hundreds of years, is decentralizing nowadays and embarking on a voyage towards the West, not in imperial galleons like those which visited it from western European powers and which bled it dry in centuries past, but through its discipline of work, negotiation and investment, in which the chinese have shown themselves to be consummate masters just like Mr Wu himself, thirty years on, replicated by the thousand, indeed make that by the million.

The cultural clash between China and the West, regarding how to get closer and forge those personal relationships which are so important to the Chinesegets in the way of business exchanges. Wu, with full knowledge of the facts, gave me one crystal clear example: a Spanish industrialist wanted to export his machines to China and sent all the information, detailing their finer points and advantages By return of post, he received from his opposite number in China a long list of the potential difficulties involved in selling within China. Wuadvised him to visit in person, so the Spanish industrialist did just that Was this for a business meeting in China to clear up any misunderstandings and weigh up the technical advantages of his machines compared with his competitors? No, the first priority was to invite his potential sale representative for China to a banquet. Ah, so that he could then organize a meeting or a working lunch? No, at the banquet nobody would talk about work at all: there would simply be conversation, laughter, toasts drunk with maotai(an alcoholic drink made from sorghum), an exchange of business cards and gifts. Nothing whatsoever to do with work The author’s family in front of the birds Nest After this came a second banquet, this time laid on by the chinese businessman. Ought the Spaniard, this time, introduce new information, maybe give a powerPoint presentation or show a video? No, the Chinese businessman already had all the information he needed; information was never the issueOnce again there was an abundance of dishes on offer -Pantagruelian as the Chinese like to provide on these occasions -conversation at length, laughter, time and again ganbei(cheers! literally: empty glass) and mutual displays of camaraderie and trust.

At last, a response from the Chinese businessman arrives: he is willing to act as sales representative, the negotiations have reached their conclusion Were there further questions about the machines? not a single one. all the businessman wanted to do was to meet his associate, discover with whom he was making the deal: the Chinese do not do business with people they do not know, they need to meet their counterpart in person in order to size them up and develop something akin to friendship and if you go to the trouble of learning a few phrases in Mandarin for saying hello and goodbye, that will be the cherry on the cake. The Chinese, with good reason, are tired of the fact that it is always they who make the effort to communicate, and can see only too well that it should now be up to westerners to do it, or at the very least to attempt to do it. They will recognize these attempts and fully appreciate them This is the traditional, personal, empathetic side of things which theChinese have not given up -and let us hope that they never give it up Whether it is a matter of free trade agreements, premium quality products on offer, or modern technologies for long-distance communication, the Chinese will always -at least they always have up until now and there is no reason to think that they will change their ways, at least in the short term -need to see, in person, the face of their business associate, and above all see in that face trust laughter.

So, global investors: get over your fear of flying, if you have one, and come to China, and even if you do not manage to close your deals, at the very least you will return having lived’ the Chinese experience, essential in today’s world and tomorrow’s, or so it is said. And if you do close a deal, China is thepromised land, with its 1, 300 million inhabitants. Somewhere among all of these, there is a Chinese man(or why not a Chinese woman? ) waiting for you.