The China Venture

Chinese partners. He also began to realise why he could not seem to make any headway with
his Chinese partners once Mr. Zheng is gone. Without extra “technology service” which Mr.
Zheng is providing, the strategic partnership may not be too attractive to the Chinese partners.
“Technology service” was never part of the formal agreement to co-operate in the existing
trading arrangements. Similarly, the often necessary inspection and assembly activities
relating to the trading activities were also never specified in any written agreement with
Chinese partners. These anomalies according to Paul’s past perception would now appear to
be central to the business relationships Mr. Zheng had developed and critical to their
maintenance over the longer term.
Paul continued to read on about the cultural factors relating to the negotiations for a Joint
Venture in China. Brigitta Joho and Jürgen Müller wrote:
3.4 Negotiating for a Joint Venture: Strategic Considerations (by Brigitta Joho
and Jürgen Müller)
For many people in the West, China is not only geographically but also culturally very far
away. Although modern communication technology gave us a closer link to the Asian world,
this region still seems further away than for example Australia. The completely different
culture is one major aspect. It is therefore no wonder that companies use Joint Ventures as a
first step to enter the Chinese market. The way to a successful Joint Venture is long and full of
problems. The missing language ability is certainly not the biggest obstacle, but the lack of
intercultural competence, social and economic knowledge and experience.
The keys to a successful European–Chinese Joint Venture lie in a very good preparation for
the Chinese culture and for any problem which could await the investor, as well as the ability
to use the opportunities provided by an intercultural partnership. This paper tries to highlight
the main differences between German and Swiss values and customs on one side, and Chinese
on the other.
To illustrate these differences we proceed in the following way: In a first step we build the
foundation for our paper, by giving a rough overview about the meaning of culture in its three
different levels and their functions. In the next section we present a more theoretical approach
to the Chinese way of doing business, and in the last part we summarise the experiences
gathered through the inte rviews with different companies. Finally, we would give some
recommendations on how to do business in China.
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