The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce and VKW Limburg organized the workshop: ‘Negotiating with the Chinese: Cultural Roots & Practical Recommendations’ on 19 November 2018 at VKW Limburg in Hasselt. Mr. Bo Ji, Chief Representative Europe & Assistant Dean Global Executive Education of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, was the keynote speaker.

This seminar offered guidance to business leaders on how to leverage cultural differences, complexity, uncertainty, and conflicts during the negotiation process with their Chinese partners.

Attendees gained a comparative understanding of the practical Chinese and Western approaches to negotiation as well as sharpened their own negotiation skills through learning from multiple case studies and real-life contexts. Furthermore, they identified the cultural roots behind business scenarios, providing them with the knowledge to reshape their strategies and tactics. The attending business leaders also learned to optimize their approach to a win-win value creation through negotiating with the Chinese to achieve a sustainable partnership.

Following registration and lunch, Ms Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, delivered the opening remarks. Subsequently the topics covered included: “China vs West: different cultural negotiating models”, “Chinese cultural roots and elements to shape the negotiating skills” and “Strategies that lead you to a better negotiation outcome”. A Q&A session, group discussion and networking concluded the event.

China and the United States have restarted discussions over their trade dispute, ending a three-month hiatus, ahead of a planned meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires on November 30 and December 1. The two sides are “maintaining close contact” following a November 1 phone call between Xi and Trump, said Chinese Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Gao Feng. China urged the U.S. to strive for “mutually acceptable solutions” on issues of common concern through consultations. But U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said that China should first change its behavior in economic, military and political activities to pave the way for reaching an agreement. Still, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he does not anticipate the U.S. and China will secure a full deal by January.

Xi and Pence also expressed divergent views in their speeches to the APEC Summit in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, with each laying the blame for the trade war and growing geopolitical rivalry at the other’s doorstep. “We have great respect for President Xi and China, but as we all know, China has taken advantage of the United States for many, many years and those days are over,” U.S. Vice President Pence said, adding: “The U.S. will not change course until China changes its ways.” Neither Xi nor Pence listened to the other’s speech, both of which were delivered from a conference room on a cruise ship moored in Port Moresby harbor. Pence presented the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. APEC leaders failed to agree on a final communique for the first time in the organization’s history amid sharp differences between the U.S. and China.

President Xi Jinping said China was committed to giving more market access to foreign companies as he criticized protectionism and called on the Asia-Pacific nations to protect the global trade system as he addressed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Papua New Guinea. Xi also defended China’s Belt and Road Initiative, insisting it was neither a closed club nor a debt trap. Xi told delegates: “The world is currently going through big changes, the trend of globalization must go forward, but unilateralism and protectionism are overshadowing economic growth. Mankind will have to choose between cooperation or resistance – opening up for mutual benefits or a zero-sum game.” President Xi Jinping added: “History has shown that confrontation, whether in the form of a cold war, a hot war or a trade war will produce no winners.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said that the U.S. had made progress towards resolving the trade dispute with China after receiving a response from Beijing to his demands, however adding that it was missing four or five big things. “China wants to make a deal, they sent a list of things they are willing to do which is a large list and it is just not acceptable to me yet, but at some point I think that we are doing extremely well with respect to China,” he said. “Hopefully, we will make a deal, and if we don’t, we are doing very well just the way it is right now,” Trump added. The U.S. President’s comments signal the large gap that still remains between the two sides.

China’s exports to the United States are still growing, thanks to a strong American economy and consumers’ preference for Chinese products, The Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said. The delivery of previously placed orders and “front-loading” by Chinese shippers also contributed to a robust performance so far this year, it added. As such, the impact of the U.S. trade war on China’s trade and broad economy will be “limited” with “total risks under control”, the Ministry concluded in a report. China’s exports to the U.S. rose 13.3% in the first 10 months compared with a year earlier while its imports from the U.S. increased by 8.5% in the same period, according to China Customs data. In October alone, Chinese exports to the U.S. rose by 13.2% while its imports from the U.S. fell 1.8%, earning Beijing a trade surplus of USD32 billion last month.

China’s financial condition weakened in October, pointing to a further deceleration in the economy amid the trade war with the United States. While Beijing has been pressing the country’s banks to boost lending to the “real economy”, newly granted loans nearly halved to CNY677 billion in October, from CNY1.38 trillion in September, according to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). While October is a seasonally weaker month for Chinese credit data, the fall was sharper than all economists’ estimates. Total social financing shrank to CNY728.8 billion in October, or just a third of the CNY2.17 trillion of September. Moreover, the government’s fiscal revenue has dropped 3.1% in October from a year earlier, the first fall in 2018.

Premier Li Keqiang said that the Chinese government has no plans to resort to a “massive stimulus” similar to that of 2008 as a way to manage its slowing economy. Instead, Beijing will focus its policies on “energizing the market, in particular market entities” and creating “fair and equal regulations” to maintain momentum in the economy, Li said in a speech before attending the annual summit of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore. “Despite the downward pressure, we will not resort to massive stimulus,” Li added. A further escalation of the trade war between the United States and China could force Beijing to take more expansive measures to stimulate the Chinese economy, according to asset manager PineBridge Investments.

China has obtained the big screen software used by NATO and the United States for war room mapping. Luciad, a defense contractor based in Leuven, Belgium, is selling the Chinese government high performance software used for situational awareness by the military commands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), according to the South China Morning Post. The package includes LuciadLightspeed, a program that can process real-time data, including that from fast-moving objects, with speed and accuracy. Situational awareness is the ability to know what is happening in a target environment and use that intelligence to defeat the enemy. In warfare, the situation is so fluid it can change in seconds.

Planners use data from sources such as drone feeds, satellite imagery, radar, sensor plots, weather forecasts and platoon status. Traditional software can introduce errors as large as 500 meters in the positioning of moving targets from different data streams. Luciad’s software can analyze data and generate seamless visuals at a speed of 100 calculations a second, 75 times faster than its closest competitor, with accuracy to within 3 cm and on a global scale, according to American graphics technology company Nvidia. This allows planners to visualize and analyze changes in enemy positions or assess target information in real time and adjust mission parameters accordingly, according to Nvidia.

The same software is used by the United States Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, where covert missions for the U.S. government. Under Chinese law, a foreign vendor supplying software to the Chinese government must disclose every line of source code to authorities for a security check. It was unclear whether Luciad has complied with that requirement. The company did not respond to requests for comment, the South China Morning Post reports.

Luciad was established by Dr Lode Missiaen, a senior scientist who had worked at the Nato Consultation, Command and Control Agency in The Hague, the Netherlands, in the 1990s. He left NATO and founded Luciad in 1999 to develop commercial software which was adopted by NATO in 2008. The company was bought last year by Hexagon, a technology group based in Sweden, which has established ties with the Chinese military and defense industry.

China’s large number of fintech companies has helped the country to take the lead worldwide in developing the industry, according to the Global Fintech Hub Report released during the Money 20/20 China conference. Five of the top 10 global fintech hubs are in China, and Chinese cities comprise seven out of the top 30, the report showed. It was jointly released by the Academy of Internet Finance at Zhejiang University, the Center for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge, and the Zhejiang Association of Internet Finance. Ben Shenglin, Dean of the Academy of Internet Finance at Zhejiang University, said consumer demand, technology advances, policies and the regulatory environment are the key drivers for the development of the country’s fintech industry.

Beijing was crowned as top of the list among all the 70 surveyed global cities. A total of 58 Beijing-based fintech companies have seen their respective cumulative financing top USD50 million, more than all the other cities. Lead by JD Finance, Du Xiaoman Financial and Qudian, the combined financing of the 58 companies has reached over USD21 billion. Shanghai came in at No 5 on the list, the second-highest among Chinese cities, with 26 fintech companies based in the city reporting respective accumulative financing of over USD50 million. As a global financial center, the added value of the financial industry contributed 17% to Shanghai’s GDP last year.

Hangzhou in Zhejiang province – the home of Alibaba and its financial arm Ant Financial – stood just one position below Shanghai on the list. Although only 13 fintech companies in the city have seen their respective accumulative financing reaching over USD50 million, their total financing value has topped USD23.9 billion, the highest worldwide. Furthermore, Hangzhou leads the world in terms of fintech consumer experience, with about 91.5% of the city’s population using fintech products and services. Ye Jinwu, Founder and Chairman of Hangzhou-based fintech company Ying Ying Group, said that Hangzhou still lags behind first-tier Chinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, in terms of the size of its fintech industry. But, the city has demonstrated unparalleled vibrancy in terms of business activity and entrepreneurship, and the sufficient talent supply in the city is an important reason for the large number of fintech startups in Hangzhou, he said.

Advertisers and marketers are increasingly focusing on digital media as online searches and microblogs have assumed immense potential in terms of access to the consumer mind, and are now more effective compared to print and broadcast media. Within the digital space in China, the mobile channel is something that brands simply cannot do without, experts said. Over 95% of the online population use mobile devices to access the internet, according to the China Statistical Report on Internet Development, which was published in August.

The rise of e-commerce has brightened the allure of the digital medium, said Iris Chin, General Manager of media agency MediaCom China. The country is a hub for digital innovation, thanks to the contributions of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) and a bunch of new players. In the last three years, the percentage of mobile ads in terms of overall internet spending jumped ten-fold to over 60%, according to consultancy iResearch. It forecast the number will eventually grow to 80% by the end of next year. People spend 76 minutes per day on Tencent’s iconic messenger WeChat on average, the company said last year, while time spent on fast rising rival short video app Douyin reached about 60 minutes, according to its parent Bytedance. “It’s no wonder companies are spending big on digital given that marketing dollars follow consumer behavior,” Chin said.

Fixation with mobile means that consumers in China are now utilizing apps to make purchase decisions, said Jacky Tang, General Manager of Neo Communications, a Shanghai-based agency dedicated to digital marketing solutions. “To navigate through the highly complex and segmented digital landscape, the safe bet is to start with WeChat and Weibo, which we deem as the ‘twin pillars’ of China’s social media,” Tang said. Probably China’s most popular mobile app, WeChat has become a default way of life for the Chinese to pay bills, access news, book taxi rides or even make a doctor’s appointment. The troves of data generated through this all-in-one killer app has given Tencent a leg up in the digital marketing landscape, the China Daily reports. Domenica di Lieto, CEO of Emerging Communications, recommended companies start by building up an audience on Chinese microblogging site Weibo before pouring money into a WeChat marketing campaign. “We say that Weibo is an acquisition platform and WeChat is a retention platform,” she said.