A China Business Primer : Ethics, Culture, and Relationships

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored longstanding fissures in China’s business relationships with the West. If the West is going to develop a relationship of mutual trust and improve business relations with China in the coming decades, it is imperative to understand how to engage with Chinese thinking on ethics in business—this book explains how.

Government officials, businesspeople, and business-ethicists have trouble communicating about issues in ethics, policy, and business across the China-West divide. This book shows how to overcome the us-versus-them mindset plaguing China-West relations by presenting to Western audiences an easy-to-understand yet deeply informed primer on core ideas and perspectives in Chinese cultural and philosophical thought. The book considers original texts of Chinese philosophy and religion, and applies principles from those writings to three business-ethics topics of enduring interest to business executives, government officials, and academics, namely, the protection of intellectual property, assurance of product safety and quality in the pharmaceutical supply chain, and human rights.%u3000

This book is a must-read for those who want to forge constructive relationships with their Chinese counterparts based on mutual trust and understanding. The book is specifically relevant to business executives, but it should also be of interest to policymakers, educators, and students who seek to communicate more effectively with their Chinese counterparts, in particular about difficult and contentious business, policy, and ethical issues.

List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 : Tea with the Dragon : Traditional Chinese Ethics and Contemporary Chinese Business
Chapter 2 : An Ethical Triad for Understanding Traditional Chinese Culture : Context-First, Interconnectedness, and Awareness, and How They Can Be Used to Protect Intellectual Property
Chapter 3 : Cultivating Ethical Agility : Face and Assuring Safety and Quality in the Supply Chain
Chapter 4 : Cultivating Ethical Agility and Employing Gu%u0101nxi to Protect Human Rights
Chapter 5 : Beyond Face and Gu%u0101nxi : Normative Concepts and Foundational Values of Traditional Chinese Ethics

Index