No, they will never learn and it is all down to the ideology of loosing face. Take a typical boardroom meeting. In other countries it is common for people to discuss and also criticise ideas no matter who has suggested them. In China it is the complete opposite.

It all stems from some simple facts. Being a communist state they are seated firmly in collectivism, not individualism. They are taught, brainwashed even, from the very first day in school to not think for themselves but act in a very subordinate way. I remember teaching in a school and having a student who was 15 pipe up and say to me:

"Teacher, my pen is broken"

I said

"Do you have another pen?"

"Yes" The student replied. "Ok so use that pen!" "Ok" Said the student.

Only in a country like this could you hear such a discussion take place and see people completely unable to think for themselves.

What really angers me about the saving face thing though is this. Many Chinese manipulate the idea of saving face to their advantage and no more so than in the private education sector, at least in my experience. They use it to their own advantage by ripping people off and when someone questions that act or attempts to hold them accountable for it the saving face issue comes into play. In other words even though some asshole has completely screwed you over it doesn't matter. It is wrong of you to blame them or try to hold them accountable because that results in them and/or their company loosing face. You attempt legal action and they attempt to make you compromise, the compromise usually being drop the whole issue and forget about it.

Many multinational corporations have and continue to uproot their manufacturing bases in China in favour of moving to other Asian countries like Thailand and Vietnam or India because in the long run it will be much easier and a whole lot cheaper to do so. No more staff being forced to jump through hoops at the authorities pleasure when trying to renew visas and no more out of control corruption ripping them off and stealing their products and ideas.

I think it is best described in the following manner. Trying to operate in China in work and business is like trying to navigate a labyrinth that is changing its shape every few seconds. In other words impossible. They change the rules here more times than I wipe my backside to the degree that not even they understand exactly which rules are current and enforced.