“The Trustful Business in Respect of Price and Measuring,” says the sign. I’m not posting this because the English translation isn’t good, but because I loved the phrase, “trustful business.” This echoes so well what a colleague told me last week, kindly calling from Moscow to give me some tips for my Hong Kong presentation, that we Westerners think too much about “being professional” and following fixed protocol, especially when it comes to contracts, instead of using our instincts about whether we can trust our prospective partners. He explained that the Chinese he deals with are likely to say, “If we have good trust, we will make good business together.” So it’s a worthwhile idea, to have a Trustful Business. That’s certainly how we will be successful in making guanxi, and in developing stable long-term partnerships in China.