the black China hand

Just finished a law review article titled, Business Negotiation Between Westerners and Chinese State-Owned Enterprises¹ by Catherine Xiaoying Zhang. Very interesting article that lays out, fairly succinctly, the general state of affairs of negotiations with SOEs. She also gives suggestions on negotiations strategies that would optimize a Westerner’s chances of success. While I agree and applaud Ms. Zhang’s analysis for the most part I do disagree on one key element that she seems suggest, namely that a Western firm should seek out (and thereby rely on) a Chinese person to navigate the negotiation. My experience has been that the are more than a few (and the few is growing) non-Chinese with the language, cultural skills and experience in China to get the job done just as good if not better (being that they understand the Western idea) than a Chinese negotiator. I think that a Westerner firm can, if they put the time into the search, a Westerner that answers all their question in regards to negotiations

1. See: The International Lawyer, Winter 2008, Volume 42, No.4 at 1303. [↩]