While a new, market-driven China has been emerging fast in the global market
place, Western companies have often reported frustration and confusion when
negotiating in China. To identify the roots of the problems, this study investigated
what Chinese negotiators are trained to do in the global marketplace by examin
ing China's international business negotiation textbooks used in their training pro
grams. The results indicate the following: (a) The win-win, win-lose, cooperative
egoism, and concessive negotiation strategies are taught in China with the win-win
recommended and the cooperative egoism controversially recommended, and Chi
nese negotiators are also trained to probe the counterparts' strategies and then act
accordingly; (b) Chinese negotiators are taught a large variety of communication
techniques for negotiation arrayed along a continuum from the relationship-based
win-win strategy to the pure competition-based win-lose mentality; however, the
win-win techniques are taught and used far more frequently; and (c) the Chinese
textbooks clearly reflect China's foreign trade and economic cooperation principles:
equality, mutual understanding, mutual trust, mutual benefit, and long-term coop
eration. At the same time, the textbook authors may see a need to emphasize the
win-win strategy because in nearly half the cited real-life cases it was not used.
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