In the evening of 26^th Oct, our MBA School invited doctor ZHANG Xiang, the executive director of CCIEE, and also the honorary dean of School of Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, gave a lecture about “the soft power of culture and the international negociation” for the MBA and EMBA students in lecture hall of MBA School.

Doctor ZHANG Xiang, was a student of Engineering Physics at Tsinghua University. His major is international economy and trade. He was a doctor of Columbia University and he also attended many negotiations on international trade.

       He shared his experience on a negotiation of the construction of the SHANGHAI Line 1 metro. In 1983, SHANGHAI started building its metro station. It was approved by central government, but the funds will rise from the foreign countries. At that time, the three weakness: first, the concept is different: Chinese people always think it is inferior to borrow money from someone; second, it is the system of negotiation: the country who offers us equipment does not equal the county that offer us money; third is the lack of experience. According to the three weakness, ZHANG came up with ideas to lower the costs by creating competitions.

        ZHANG pointed out that it is very important to get the big picture. The negotiation will not be process until the preparation is ready. And when the time is ready, we should immediately take actions. At the meantime, ZHANG also emphasized that we should respect the principle of mutual benefits: one will not only care about their own profits, but also try to expand the total benefits. We should compete under the context of justice, fairness and openness. In the end, ZHANG took examples of DENG Xiaoping,  Mikhail Gorbachev to explain the importance of making preparations and doing available researches in the process of negotiation.