- In the west we usually identify distinct types of influence. We even have special words for particular kinds of influence. Nepotism, cronyism, old boys networks, etc. These identify particular types of connection and particular forms of influence. Friendship through a golf club or university hall would be a characteristic aspect of an old boys network, for example. In Finland, you might think of a 'sauna clique' business culture. Also, we think about these types of relationships independently. Someone might be proud of their 'old boy' connections but intolerant of nepotism, seeing one as earned and the other as given. In contrast, guanxi is more of a melting pot. It could mean a lot of things. It's more like the word 'sway' or 'pull' in English, in a networking sense. It incorporates cronyism, family duty, nepotism, friendship, business connections, political power...
- Moral connotations can be completely different. Guanxi is a good thing sometimes, bad thing other times. Giving a key job to your son is bad in a Western company, arguably 'good' in the East. Providing he's not useless.
- You don't leave business networks at the door of the house; guanxi networks permeate friendship/family/business connections. You might not normally introduce a business colleague to a member of your family, in the west. This relates to my earlier point about it being less structured than Western influence systems.
- Reciprocity matters. Let's say I do you a big favour. You pay me back the next day by giving me a set of tickets to get a nice dinner somewhere. By maintaining a balanced relationship we remain friends. In Chinese culture this would be a bit of a faux pas. By repaying immediately and at a similar level to the gift received, you're basically extinguishing the opportunity to develop guanxi immediately - an unfriendly act. Where western relationships tend to be balanced, and quickly, Chinese relationships instead seem to prosper through periods of imbalance, overpayment back, and so on. The scales should not be balanced, they should sway back and forward. This dynamic is characteristic of a good friendship or a good guanxi connection.
Source: sat at the back of a 10-week course on Chinese business studies, during my PhD, and had a friend whose master's thesis topic was contrasting guanxi with western-style 'leverage'. No citations, feel welcome to treat it as hearsay. :)
I don't know what the final dissertation title/theme ended up as, but we talked a lot about guanxi vs other similar cultural behaviours while he was writing it.
Option A) The wife of a former president
vs.
Option B) A former close friend & financial donor to the same former president.
Chinese guanxi looks pretty tame compared to the US race for 'most powerful person in the world'. :-)
In that scene, somebody wants the Don to go beat the shit out of somebody who beat the shit out of his daughter, and offers to pay money.
In response, the Don asks what he has done to make the other guy disrespect him so.
Guanxi is all about building relationships, not mercenary transactions. In asian culture, if you toss somebody some money for a transaction or a favor, you're treating him disrespectfully as an employee.
From the Wikipedia page, the most useful paragraph in describing the differences is probably the second paragraph under "Western vs. Eastern social business relations": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi#Western_vs._Eastern_soc...
It's useful because it uses a framework for understanding relationships in either culture: trust, bonding, reciprocity, and empathy. Western guanxi and Chinese guanxi can be understood through this framework. While I'm open to the idea that it's a flawed framework, it proves my point that Western culture has analogous social expectations. Less like beet sugar and aspartame and more like bat wings and bird wings - both shaped differently, both used differently, but for the same function. I am interested in the differences, but there will be a fair amount of structural similarities.
I also disagree with your characterization of this perspective as being "very western." Considering guanxi as something fundamentally different from how Western culture works is Eurocentric - very Western, as you had said. Stepping back and analyzing how informal Western reputation systems work in the same light as how guanxi works in China is a way of de-centering the Western perspective and removing the exoticism from Chinese culture.
From my outsider perspective, it's not that there is no western analog; rather the meaning changes with context and therefore it is difficult to translate as a single concept (in English at least).
From your response above, I think that you're correct (from my experience) in saying it is "trust, bonding, reciprocity, and empath", just not necessarily at the same time.
Sometimes it's "trust", sometimes its "nepotism". But it's definitely fluid.
"In the Western perspective, trust is referred to as mutual reliability, dependability, and reciprocity. However, in the Eastern perspective, trust is also synonymous with obligation, in which guanxi is expected to be maintained through continuous long-term association and interaction. Whereas bonding in a Western context may refer simply to common interests with the client, bonding in an Eastern context refers to a close friendship with the client. The Chinese system of wu-lune (the basic norms of guanxi) supports this Eastern attitude, emphasizing that one’s fulfillment of one’s responsibilities in a given role ensures the smooth functioning of Chinese society. Reciprocity is also a dimension which is much more emphasized in the East than in the West. According to Confucianism, each individual is encouraged to become a yi-ren (righteous person) and repay a favor with significantly more than one has received. Lastly, empathy is a dimension that is highly embedded in Eastern business relations, more so than in its Western counterpart. The Confucian understanding of ren, which also equates to “Do not do to others as one does not want others to do to him”, stresses the importance for sellers and customers to understand each other’s needs.[19]"