The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2019 39 T he Chinese term mao dun (literally “spear shield”) is used to describe two irreconcil- able differences. It comes from a famous folktale about an endless battle between two warriors—one with a spear that could pierce any shield, and the other with a shield that could stop any sword. Here, drawn from my personal experi- ence, is a sampling of common Chinese practices that run counter to our sense of right and proper international behavior. Inconsistent application of import regulations. A product rejected at one Chinese port may well be accepted at another. I was meeting with an importer when he got a call about an arriving shipment. “Yes … good …What?! NO! The ship must dock at BERTH SIX! That is where things are arranged!” he exclaimed. Vastly different tariffs may be assessed for the same product, as well. In one case I worked on, one com- pany importing a product with a 44 percent tariff paid zero, while another importer paid 100 percent. Ignoring their own trade bans and their own rhetoric. For many years in the trade, there was a run- ning joke that because Beijing banned a certain U.S. product, China was only our fourth-largest market for it. During a break in one negotiation in which I had been told yet again how U.S. meat was unsafe and posed a grave risk to Chinese, my opposite number came up to me and said, “Minister Counselor Shull, I want to tell you my wife and I are so happy our son will be going to university in the United States!” Changing requirements in the middle of a negotiation. When Chinese officials were surprised to learn we could comply with a new technical require- ment for an agricultural product, they called a break and then announced a stricter one. Rejecting shipments that are no longer profit- able. If the price of an imported product has dropped between the signing of the contract and the delivery, chances rise that Chinese inspectors will find the shipment does not meet contract specifications and reject it. Ignoring some laws and regulations to achieve a more important objective. During the peak of the “one-child policy” in the late 1980s, I discovered in my crop travels that most farmers were ignoring it. When I asked a Beijing official in charge of rural policy about this, he said: “Local officials must adapt central government policies to local conditions. The one-child policy in the villages might be very unpopular with the peasants.” Relationships trump laws and rules. One joint venture executive shared two kernels of wisdom: “The signing of the contract marks the beginning of the negotiations,” and “If the relationship is not good, the contract won’t save you.” (These attitudes toward relationships played out even inside the embassy. In the early days of ICASS, the admin section put out a notice that agencies could no longer share office supplies.When one Foreign Service National was chal- lenged for using another section’s copier, she replied, “Oh, it’s okay, because one of your officers is married to one of our officers, so we are related.”) Mistrust of “The People.” Even otherwise open- minded Chinese I have spoken with say China is “too big” for democracy.When I spoke with demonstrating pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, some told me: “Well, of course, we can’t let everyone vote. Peasants don’t have education and would vote to raise food prices, and that would be destabilizing.” Mistrust of “The Market.” During the early intro- duction of market reforms, one local grain official asked me, “How does the U.S. government set the price of bread?” I explained that our government doesn’t do that; the price floats. “If there are 100 people and 50 loaves of bread, there is one price; and if there are 50 people and 100 loaves of bread, there is another price,” I said. He paused for a moment and then asked, “How does the U.S. government set the price of bread?” Setting impossible standards. One way China has tried to reconcile millennia of absolute government power over commercial operations with an objective and egalitarian rules-based system of trade and laws is to set standards no one can meet, and then give officials the discretion about whether to enforce them. This practice alone has disrupted billions of dollars in U.S. food and agricultural exports. —Phil Shull THE GREAT WALL SEPARATING COMMON GROUND