China business etiquette: 'Nothing gets decided in Chinese meetings' (VIDEO)

This video is really silly. I seriously doubt the speaker has any real experience buying products from China. I've done business with many of the largest factories in China and plenty of decisions are made during meetings. Listen to this guy and you will waste a lot of time and accomplish very little in your business dealings. This guy is overemphasizing guanxi without truly understanding it.

Thank you for visiting and commenting, and we understand what you are saying. From the hundreds of China business meetings we have participated in, our take on this was that by "meeting" the speaker was referring to more formal, large-scale meetings between multiple personnel from two companies, where the potential for knotty, contentious issues might exist (for example, negotiating a joint venture project). Hence the reference to meetings of twos and threes and fours after the (main) meeting.

Those small meetings would probably be more comparable to a typical one-on-one meeting between a buyer and a supplier. In that setting, we would certainly agree that buyers can expect to get decisions at "a meeting." And of course, experienced exporters often adapt to their customers expectations. That said, more than a few buyers have expressed confusion to us at how issues were raised and discussed but left hanging during a meeting at the office or factory, and a final decision only crystallized during dinner or karaoke afterwards. The point is not to be frustrated if the decision-making flow sometimes seems different from back home.