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Dec. 3, 2018 - Steve Pieczenik
04:31
OPUS 103 Trump's Chinese Dinner RAW
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Hi, I'm Dr.
Pichani.
Today I'd like to talk about a very important dinner that occurred last night on Saturday.
It was an important dinner because the whole world was watching and our stock markets were waiting to see if Trump and President Xi in Buenos Aires at the G20 meetings would agree to lower the tariffs and to have a mutual beneficial economic exchange.
The initial reaction was outstanding and I have to congratulate both President Trump and his team, as well as President Xi.
Now, let me explain to you why a meal is so important in China.
For the most part, most people would think, oh, well, that's just a meal.
No.
In fact, President Trump strategically picked that time because he knew as a result of his experts on his team, and I will explain who they are, That the meal in China is paramount in order to develop what we call Guanchi.
Guanchi is an interpersonal relationship spelled the following, which means to have a relationship with somebody.
That is the essence Of Chinese negotiation.
And what you want to do in Chinese negotiation is to go from Guanqi, U-U-N-X-I, to Xinren, X-I-N-R-E-N, which means detrust.
And through that meal, Trump had succeeded in doing it.
Let me tell you in the beginning, he had a very effective team.
On the side, he created a three-pronged strategy, from my point of view.
On the side, that was anti-Chinese.
He had a Dr.
Navarro, he had John Bolton, and several other people.
But on the opposite side, he brought with him as well Mnuchin and Jared Kushner, who were pro-Chinese and wanted a deal.
But the most important part of that team is Michael Pillsbury.
I don't know Mike Pillsbury, but I know about him.
He has his PhD from Columbia.
And he trained at the RAM Corporation before I did.
But he is an expert on China.
He speaks Mandarin and works with Chinese intelligence and knows every aspect of manipulating the Chinese through the meal.
So, in fact, Trump was very well prepared for this meeting.
Now, let me explain something about why Chinese meals are important.
Number one, They are the basis on which we develop Guangxi, which is what I told you.
But secondly, their attitude towards most Westerners is one of the Middle Kingdom complex.
That is, China is an old, old, old, thousands of year old civilization, and it has all the time in the world.
to develop whatever it needs.
It also has an underlying Confucius attitude which says that in order to deal with the Chinese, not only are you somewhat barbaric, we Westerners, but you also have to understand our Confucius attitudes of relationship, guanxi, and at the same time, having process more important than end results.
And by the way, we're going to be hierarchically more important than you, but we won't say that.
So why am I focusing on this?
When I was involved in MIT with Lu Shun Pai and my professor, who was a China expert, I was not, I helped him to develop the profile for Mao Zedong.
At the same time, I helped him to develop the beginning of what was called Chinese negotiation with an opening strategy, middle strategy, and end strategy.
I then went on with Dr.
Richard Solomon, who also was an MIT graduate, went on to the Rand Corporation and formally developed the transcultural negotiation styles for China.
But I want to add something that was very important from my perspective.
When I came to China, I was not a China expert, but I understood two things.
Number one, how I ate with the chopsticks was very important.
In the beginning, I showed that I was quite awkward.
I didn't know what to do, and they kind of laughed.
But immediately, I reversed my strategy and picked up one little grain of Let me quote Hu Jintao, the former president of China, who says Chinese culture does not only belong to China, it belongs to the world.
And let me also quote John F.K., who said, The word for crisis in Chinese means danger and opportunity.
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