I think when we're in China it's important to remember that winning the battle may cost you the war. It's a natural western reaction when dealing with conflict to want to win. If your opinion differs to mine, my opinion has to override yours. We'll find that in China you may win the argument but it will cost you in the long run. It will cost you in terms of relationship because of losing face. Now as an example of this, two personal friends of mine are engineers. They deal with oil and gas supply. One guy is a British-based engineer. The other guy is also British but he's China-based. A couple of years ago they'd signed a rather large pipeline deal with a state owned enterprise. They provided the gas meters for this pipeline. A month after the deal was signed and everything was fitted together, they were called out. The complaint was that the pressure couldn't get the right pressure to pump the gas through the pipeline. And since the pressure gauges were there, responsibility, they called out the British engineers. The first thing they did was go to meet the state owned enterprise, Chinese engineers. And having checked the machinery, checked the pipeline, the pressure gauges and realised that nothing was wrong with it, the next thing they had to look at was the mathematics. So they called the chief engineer who came along with his team and asked to see the numbers. When he presented the numbers, the British engineer, the British-based engineer, was very quick to spot the problem. And the problem was, according to him, that the figure they were using for gravity was a different figure to the universally accepted figures for gravity. The Chinese engineer denied it and said that these figures were correct. The British-based engineer got more angry and started to lecture him in front of the rest of his team using a lot of sarcasm, asking him in terms of if I drop an apple in China, does it drop slower than if I drop an apple in England? Is that what you're saying to me? Getting more and more aggressive with him using aggressive body language, aggressive gestures in front of his team? Now, the British- the China-based engineer, also British but been in China for a while, realised that the knock-on effect of this guy losing face could be rather serious. So he stepped in and took his British colleague to one side, explained to him that this aggressive reaction was not the way to solve the situation. While he was talking to the British engineer, the British-based engineer, the Chinese engineer disappeared. He came back a couple of minutes later with a book, which he quite angrily waved in the face of the China-based British engineer. He opened it and pointed vigorously to the figures. My friend, the China-based British engineer, looked at the book and very clearly the number had been scratched off and inked back in. So freshly that he could have smudged it. However, being aware of the situation, he was able to look at the engineer and say, now I understand where the mistake was, the book has given you the wrong information. However, if we use these figures, we'll be able to pump the gas through. The engineer was able to turn to his team and show that it wasn't his mistake. It was a printing error. On top of that, my friend, the China-based British engineer, had gained a lot of rapport with this Chinese guy. Instead of a natural Western reaction that you're lying to me, it's an insult to my intelligence, he realized that actually the Chinese engineer was looking for steps. He just needed to avoid losing face in front of his team. They were very quickly able to fix the situation and the China-based British engineer formed a very close working relationship with the Chinese guy because he understood how best to work with him. .