International Negotiations

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17

1B Preparing to negotiate

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Background note

Guanxi is pronounced 

/ˈɡwanʃi/

. See 

http://www.thinkingchinese.com/guanxi-guanxixue-

personal-connection-in-modern-china

 for some background information on guanxi.

Note that although English is now widely learned in China, older people and people 

away from the wealthier coastal areas may not have learned it. Even those who have 

studied English may find it more difficult than speakers of European languages which 

are more closely related to English, and may have strong accents. Very few people from 

other countries have studied or mastered Chinese. To complicate matters, different 

dialects of Chinese may be seen as different languages, so someone who has learned 

Mandarin Chinese (the most commonly spoken form of Chinese, including in the north of 

the country and inland) may not be able to communicate with a speaker of Cantonese 

(also called Yue Chinese, widely spoken in the wealthier southern coastal areas around 

Hong Kong and Guangzhou).

Answers

1  SunSource, a multinational solar energy company, and the North China Electric Power 

Company.

2  It wants a large contract to build solar-thermal energy plants using its own proprietary 

technology (= technology which they have the sole rights to use).

3  They are concerned with politeness and protocol (= rules about how to behave).

4  They will often assume that everything is negotiable and do not like to be bound by 

written contracts.

5  Special treatment of those in one’s immediate business network.

6  Younger executives may receive less respect than more senior business people, 

especially when dealing with state-run industries.

7  Up to five.

Trainees then work in pairs to read the profiles and to plan the best team. Note that this 

discussion is itself a form of negotiation, but point out that the aim is to share information 

and to find the best solution, rather than to get as many of ‘my people’ onto the team as 

possible. Allow plenty of time for the discussion (up to ten minutes) and monitor carefully, 

paying particular attention to their skills and weaknesses as negotiators. At the end, 

trainees give feedback to each other, using the online feedback forms (see page 110 and 

www.cambridge.org/elt/internationalnegotiations

). Ask each pair to present their dream 

team to the class. Finally, give and elicit feedback on the success of the discussions/

negotiations and the language used.

If you have an odd number of trainees, you will need to have one group of three, where the 

third trainee can read both sets of profiles, and should act as a mediator to help the other two 

trainees to reach a decision.

8 

Trainees read the commentary to compare it with their own ideas, and to see which pair was 

closest to the suggested solution. Discuss with the class which solution – the one from the 

commentary or your trainees’ own solutions – is best.