People find it impossible to play at China's "extreme level" not because the level is extreme, but simply because of cultural differences. All you have to do is to look at how Chinese friends and American friends treat each other. The Chinese are much more generous in lending money to their friends, or sharing food, or wtv, something that simply doesn't happen in the West. This, of course, also has nothing to do with extreme lack of trust, or attempting to build guanxi for other purposes.
>Doctors and nurses will probably give sloppy or delayed treatment because they are expecting money and gifts from you or your relatives before they treat you, if they are not in your guanxi network, so always work on your network to include someone in hospitals. Don't trust the law to punish the bad doctors for such cruelty, there is no such thing. You get the picture. Now anybody still say it's similar in developed western countries?
There no need in the West for this simply because the health system is multi-tiered. Rich people will just pay more money for better healthcare, thus no need for the whole backdoor stuff.
Anyways, I have yet to seen someone rebuke my argument I wrote previously about how joining a frat and finally getting a job through it is just as "guanxi" as anything else in China.
People mostly get their jobs through recommendations anyways. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/business/employers-increas...
That said, guanxi, as a sibling post speculates, is all about trust. It's the idea that beyond a simple task at hand, there is a deeper relationship to be honored, for whatever reason. The "developed" world on the other hand loves the notion of contract and enforcement through the rule of law, so that people wouldn't need to rely on silly things like trust and good will.
The lack of trust is at the core of the State and the legislative system (cf Hobbes) which is distinctive of Western societies.
In the past Chinese have lived in small villages. Even though the land is vast, people rarely moved to other places due to lack of means and the atrocious government policies. So ordinary people dealt with relatives and village folks in their entire lives. Trust was based on the threat that you would be practically dead if you behaved badly and were shunned by the village.
Now coming into the 20th century, people started moving into cities to interact with strangers. It's a new and somewhat shocking experience, because most of them only knew the way of life which you just obey the orders from parents/senior family members, follow the old rituals. Unlike the western countries which went through centuries of Enlightenment, the new Chinese cities are almost void of social and civil code, void of sensible law and law enforcement. That's what China has been through in the last century. Quite a few, now escaped from the watchful eyes of folks back in the villages, use the newly gained freedom to conduct unlawful activities, from fabricating their credentials, to using dirty recycled oil to prepare food, all the way to bribing and accepting bribes to drive people away from their home in order to build a shopping mall. So imho ordinary Chinese do not trust each other that much. They seek insurance(strong guanxi is a form of it) in all daily interactions, and hope others would behave.
"instead of trusting normal social contract and normal civil relationship between strangers". What's "normal" to you? Western way of life?
"unlawful activities": because there's no such thing in the West? It is actually the opposite: Chinese people are less prone to do criminal activities, so much that I'd let my 10 yo daughter walk at night almost anywhere in China, while even a male adult wouldn't walk unaccompanied in many places in the West. I do not say that it is because of some special essence of Chinese people, to me it is simply because of a better education.
Foreigners are definitely included in these circles, it is just that their use is very limited (what good is an English teacher in your network, or a software engineer). Also, the FCPA makes participation dangerous for us Americans, at least. Even giving a doctor a red envelope at a state hospital is in violation.
A very good and realistic, although slightly exaggerated example of the things written here is the book "Party Members" by Arthur Meursault [1]. It has quite a few fantastic scenes describing building and using guanxi as it is done in China on a daily basis. It may seem extreme to those who haven't lived or done business in China, but that's the grim reality of it.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IJLRVBW, https://camphorpress.com/books/party-members/
Chinese often try to sugarcoat guanxi. But to put it bluntly, it is for law/rule breaking or law/rule bending favors to acquaintances. Only because the Chinese have practiced it for millenniums as a daily surviving activities, just as eating and sleeping, the Chinese have forgotten that it's an ugly way of life. Guanxi in China is not a shameful matter _at all_, but a proud and face-boosting accomplishment which is often boasted in meetings and banquets, on social networks, and announced publicly and proudly to anybody as a show of strength.
So, the absolute necessity of guanxi, the enormous amount of utilities, the glories associated with it, most people not grown up in China/Taiwan would find it impossible to play at China's extreme level.
What's the secret source to crack guanxi in China? IMHO, it is this: always remind yourself __the lack of trust is at the core of the Chinese society__, and deduce from there. Law and law enforcement are not trustful, so you need to have friends in the government. Business contracts are not to be trusted at all, so constant monitoring and vigilance are absolute necessary during the entire business interaction with your Chinese partner, even though the contract signing ceremony was attended by high level governmental officials and announced on national newspapers! Doctors and nurses will probably give sloppy or delayed treatment because they are expecting money and gifts from you or your relatives before they treat you, if they are not in your guanxi network, so always work on your network to include someone in hospitals. Don't trust the law to punish the bad doctors for such cruelty, there is no such thing. You get the picture. Now anybody still say it's similar in developed western countries? :)
So how to go about build guanxi in China? If you have overcome the unbearable loath on the whole matter and said to yourself, I am gonna play it all the way to fucking make it in China. My advice is, do what the Chinese do. The No.1 approach used by Chinese to build guanxi is to __inject fixed|irremovable elements into your relationship with someone__ if you want to guanxi that person. Such fixed|irremovable elements include things such as born in the same province, graduated from same school, served in the same division in the army, have worked in the same company(maybe at different time), related to each other by blood no matter how distant that is, basically anything that will not change for the rest of your life, and preferably the elements happened in the past, not recently, as history and time add a little seriousness and trustworthiness to it. In contrast, fickle things in relationships (in the eyes of the Chinese) are things such as your abilities and accomplishments, your credentials, social status, the promises made, member of the same club at this moment (this helps a bit but needed further enhancement), etc. Fire up your imagination and creativity to find out the fixed elements in guanxi, promote it, enhance it, and build from there.