How to Communicate Efficiently with Chinese Suppliers? (A European Perspective)

You think you are understood, no questions raised, you hear a lot of 'yes', you close the meeting with many good hopes. Then two weeks later you get something that is not what you thought you agreed on. You feel confused, you start a new meeting, spend time clarifying, correcting, and reworking, again no questions raised, and you hear a lot of 'yes' the second time, you close the meeting, and hope for the best. Will there be a third time? Can be.

Is it the English language that is the problem? Sometimes that is correct. But very often, that is not the root cause.

In my personal experience, communication efficiency problems could be due to three reasons. One is understanding of the business itself, and this post is not intended for this problem. The second is language skills. The third is what sits behind language: culture and values.

1. Language Skills: From Emails to Phone Calls

Language skills have four aspects: Listening, speaking, reading, writing.

Thanks to modern technologies, reading and writing, i.e. emails, is no longer a problem today. Chinese suppliers often draft in Chinese and translate using Google Translate or various AI tools. AI (Large Language Models) is naturally skilled at translating one language into another. In Glob-el's case, my Chinese colleagues are writing much better than me with the help of AI, and AI can even mimic the tone of your writing—quite amazing.

However, listening and speaking can still be a problem. Therefore, where communication fails most often is real-time communication—face-to-face, video calls (e.g., Teams meeting), and telephone calls.

• Face-to-face communication is usually easier. You have body language, you can point at drawings, you can slow down, you can see whether someone looks uncertain about certain points and explain a bit more.

• Video calls are harder. Teams meetings have become quite common, and you know how it works compared to physical meetings. Many small misunderstandings go unnoticed during the process and can accumulate, and people can lose focus so some details are missed.

• Phone calls are the hardest. Pure audio removes too many signals (according to studies, only 7% of info is expressed via language itself). If your topic is complex, e.g., going through specifications—a phone call can be risky.

Almost all of my Glob-el Chinese colleagues are very fine with emails; some of them could get nervous when it comes to Teams meetings, and only the most skilled can master phone calls.

It is always challenging when a new customer and a new supplier start talking about complex projects via Teams meeting. It is like marriage; it takes time to build up team chemistry, plus the trust level is normally low at the beginning, making things even more difficult. There are quite a few cases when things get stuck over Teams, then we fly engineers to have physical meetings with customers, and everything gets solved fast, like a miracle.

But some projects still go wrong even when language is fine. That brings us to the second issue.

2. Culture and Values: The Hidden Barriers

In English, people sometimes say 'we don't speak the same language'. This is quite funny, because normally when people say so, they are practically speaking the same (English) language. It is about values, and values are very related to culture. When European teams work with Chinese suppliers, the difference can be large enough to create real cultural shock.

To understand the Chinese side, it helps to remember one thing: Chinese business culture is not one single layer, and the deepest layer is still Confucian culture, simply because it shaped society for around two thousand years. In recent decades, you also have additional layers: communism, free market economy, globalization, etc.

Three biggest difficulties can be the 'Yes, yes, yes' culture, 'lose face' culture, and 'speed' culture.

The 'Yes, yes, yes' Culture

This is the most common one. In many Chinese contexts, saying "no" directly is impolite, or even disrespectful. So 'yes' does not always mean agreement. It can mean 'I hear you.' It can mean 'I will try.' It can mean 'let’s not block the conversation right now.'

A more reliable approach is to stop asking yes/no questions as your main confirmation method. Instead, ask them to explain back the requirement in their own words. Ask what they believe the next steps are. Ask what they will do, by when.

'Lose Face (面子)' - The Cost of Public Embarrassment

People often say 'Chinese people care about face (面子).' That is quite true, but the face is not the physical face, but 'getting respected by others', especially in public.

The operational meaning is simple: do not embarrass Chinese people in public.

If you challenge someone very directly in a meeting—especially in front of colleagues, or in front of their manager—you can create a 'lose face' moment. You may not see a conflict immediately. In fact, you may see polite agreement. But later you may see less openness, less honesty, and more safe answers.

So if your goal is to get real information—real constraints, real doubts, real risks—public confrontation is usually the wrong tool. Instead, ask privately when possible. That is why 'Do you understand?' is often a weak question. It invites a polite 'yes', even when understanding is incomplete.

'Speed, Speed, Speed' Culture

You may have heard about the famous sentence 'Time is money, efficiency is life' by Chairman Deng. This has strongly rooted into Chinese people's blood, and Chinese people often genuinely value efficiency. But in many environments, efficiency is interpreted as speed: decide fast, execute fast, deliver fast.

For European customers, the pattern can look like this: the Chinese supplier is quick, responsive, energetic, but the output is not what you expected. Speed overrules quality, which should be the other way around—the word 'efficiency' is meaningful only when the quality is correct.

This is not solved by telling people to "slow down." That rarely works. The practical solution is to add gates with clear criteria (drawings, prototypes, engineering samples, final samples, etc.), and make sure it is really understood and checked by them before sending to you. When you do this, speed becomes an advantage instead of a risk.

Finding the Right Balance

If the issue is language skills, different tools can help, and they will keep improving. If the issue is culture and values, they don't get changed quickly. You design processes so they don't damage the project.

And eventually, there is a much simpler way: work with Chinese suppliers who are already used to European customers. They understand both Western culture and Chinese culture, they know where things can go wrong, and they have good experience on how to make it work. They pick the right people and train them, so you don't feel communication as a problem.