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How Do Westerns And East Asians Differ From General?

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How do Westerns and East Asians differ in general? Many scholars comment on the fact that East Asian countries act similarity in various conditions due to the influence of Confucianism and shared culture history. Often the Confucian roots in these countries become solutions to resolve the cultural differences compared to the West. Raymond Cohen categorizes the Western style negotiation into a low-context style and Asians as high context style. The reason that the East and West differ greatly in negotiating styles is due the collectivistic traits in Asian societies but not Confucianism. Many countries that are not in the Confucianism sphere also share the same high-context styles that are contrasting to the West. The conditions of these …show more content…

Americans use these four negotiating styles interchangeable in different cases. Contrastingly, it is hard to use any of these four styles to describe East Asians’ negotiating style. East Asian negotiators often give priorities to their long-term friends instead of looking for the win-win solution the American government prefers. In many cases, East Asian countries would ask for understanding from the opponent in order to change the policies that are already settled. It is hard for East Asian nations to engage in moralistic and superpower styles because the bases of these to negotiating styles requires a country to reach hegemony first. Countries like China and Japan, who have reached hegemony in East Asia in the past, do not have the strength of America today because the global institutions were not yet constructed and the diplomatic ties cross regions were weak. East Asian countries tend to focus on the duties they carry and place importance on domestic and regional affairs rather than advocating for the rights of the countries that are in other parts of the world. Many would use the example of the former Chinese tributary system to describe that power dynamics between states are dominant in Asia historically. However, this is a false interpretation resulting from looking at historical events through modern lenses. Participants of the tributary states preferred being in the system

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