Extreme lack of trust between all entities (individuals and institutions) is the fundamental reason for the extreme guanxi phenomena in China. Practicing guanxi is for __survival__ in China, not merely for getting a better deal, as is often the case in developed countries. This is the difference those who have lived long enough both in China and other developed western countries can appreciate deeply.

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.