Very well said about your appraisal of the Chinese business (non)ethic. In China, the signing of a contract does not mean the end of negotiations, but merely the start. I once met a business man from the U.S. who has built a few factories in Jiangsu. He started doing business here since the early 80's. He goes by Ronald Reagan's advice "trust by verify." He comes to China every few months to make sure the Chinese aren't changing things on him.

I tell my students in China that whatever opinions or negative thoughts they have about foreigners to keep those things to themselves. Chinese are wary about keeping face with eachother, but foreigners are fair game whether in Mandarin or the English language. The problem with China is that they just left Mao's 30 year experiment of Communism with an ethic's vacuum. They are now returning to who they were in the past minus the Confucian ethical standards that they no longer know.

I tell people in the U.S. that China will be a world power, but not a super-power to the same extent as the U.S., the former Soviet Union, or even pre-World War France. The reason this country is important is because there are so many of them, everything is en-masse. The culture is too corrupt, the education system has serious flaws, not to mention how more countries are going against buying Chinese made products. People who have not been in country point to the number of science degrees being given out or the massive factories still being built here. But once I have been here, you see that people do give China more credit than it deserves. China is going now through its own Gilded Age. I don't trust 80% of the people I meet in China.