China has more than 4000 year’s history, and this long history has made China a unique culture that deeply impacts on China today. According to Brand China and “Harmonious and Integrated Culture” and the Building and Communication of China’s National Image, the authors both claim that Chinese traditional culture has shaped China’s national image. On the other hand, based on Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Business Culture, Chinese traditional culture also has impacted on Chinese business culture. Generally, Chinese traditional culture has impacted on current Chinese business practices, such as guanxi, face saving and so on. Moreover, as a result of influencing by Chinese traditional culture, negotiating process in China and related behaviors must be different from that of the rest of the world. Hence, knowing more about these special knowledge of negotiating in China would help people easier do business in China.
As a Chinese student, those business practices that are influenced by Chinese traditional culture are very familiar for me. For face saving, it is exactly the same as the film The Interview by Sony shows that a few Chinese local governments might build a fake everyday-low-price grocery store which looks even better than Wholefoods to make higher level government officer think that the local people are very happy. On the other hand, during my daily life when I was in China, everyone are working on obtaining more guanxi. Guanxi seems like network in American, but it is more practical and interest oriented. For example, if you want to see a doctor, but the queue is so long that you might have to wait for hours. However, you have guanxi with the chief officer of the hospital, then you can skip waiting in line and see the doctor immediately.
Besides those general examples of face saving and guanxi, there are some interesting examples about negotiating process and related behaviors in China of face saving and guanxi. First, in Cultural Notes on Chinese Negotiating Behavior, the author mentions that face saving is very important through the whole negotiating process. During negotiating meeting, if companies have conflicts, the priority is to save face, then solve the conflicts. If a high level manager of company A is speaking during meeting, no one, except the same level manager of company B, can interrupt him or answer his question without the allowance of the manager of company B. If someone interrupt or answer his question without the allowance of the manager of company B, no matter that people’s opinion is right or wrong, the manager of company A would feel lose face because he feels disrespect. Therefore, even the opinion is pretty good for company A, the meeting still has more chances to fail because someone breaks the hidden rule. Moreover, if negotiating team of company A goes to another city to have a meeting with company B, company B will arrange an extremely wonderful business dinner, as much wonderful as they can, even sometimes exceed the financial ability of company B, to welcome the negotiating team of company A. The reason why is that company B wants to face saving that makes the people of company A think company has much money and receive the message from company B that company B is strong. In my opinion, since Chinese traditional culture has marked every Chinese people, individual face saving behaviors need to be respected. However, for those organization face saving behaviors, we need to maintain calm and do not lose vigor before meeting starts.
Besides the face saving behavior in negotiating process, in Guideline: Negotiating and dealing with Chinese business partners, the author indicates that “friends first, business second”. This statement explains the meaning of guanxi in Chinese business practices. For example, if someone in the negotiating team of company A has guanxi, or friend in company B, the negotiating between company A and company B will have more chances to success, because “we are friends”. In addition, if company A has difficult to arrange a meeting with the high level manager of company B, and sometimes the high level manager of company B even rejects to meeting with company A. Under this situation, company A can find someone who is that high level manager’s friend, and ask his friend to arrange the meeting, because “we are friends”. Thus, in my opinion and based on my experiences, the “networking” methods won’t work in China, and instead of “networking”, “making friends” is more important than a perfect presentation, and sometimes is even more important than a perfect product.
To sum up, Chinese traditional culture leaves unique Chinese business culture. For having more chances of being successful in China, people need to know more about Chinese traditional culture and understand the Chinese business culture.

Summary:
Brand China:
In the book, the author indicates that the different views of the national image of China between China itself and the rest of the world may be China's greatest strategic threat. Hence, as the China’s greatest strategic threat, the misunderstood national image of China by the rest of the world, is affecting China’s development in many aspects. Additionally, the author also indicates some methods and steps that can help China improve its national image and help foreigners know the real China better.

“Harmonious and Integrated Culture” and the Building and Communication of China’s National Image:
In the article, the author introduces the meaning of Chinese traditional “harmonious and integrated culture”, and harmony means the treatments of conflicts in social and interpersonal relations, and integration refers to conformity and accordance. Then, according to the traditional meaning, the author indicates several ideas that indicates what modern connotations and value the traditional culture has, and how the traditional culture would help build and communicate China’s national image. For example, based on the traditional culture, China’s national image at present should be openness, cooperation, stability, peace, integrity, harmony and so on.

Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Business Culture：
In this article, the author introduces the concept of Neo-Confucianism which was developed by Zhu Xi, including “Four Books” that are The Analects, Mencius, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean. Additionally, the author explains how the Neo-Confucianism has impacted on current Chinese business practices, such as guanxi, face saving and so on. At last, the author suggests that by learning culture and history, we could do a better business in China.

References:
Reading materials:
Chen, E. (2010). “Harmonious and Integrated Culture” and the Building and Communication of China’s National Image. Intercultural Communication Studies, 148-154.
Ramo, J., & London, E. (2007). Brand China. London: Foreign Policy Centre.
Rarick, C. (n.d.). Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Business Culture.
Additional materials:
Sebenius, J., & Qian, C. (2008). Cultural Notes on Chinese Negotiating Behavior.
The EU SME Centre. (2013). Guideline: Negotiating and dealing with Chinese business partners (pp. 1-23). The EU SME Centre.