Hats off to the good people at China Law Blog for their recent post, Ten Tips On Negotiating The China Deal.

I should also congratulate the China Law Blog on winning the "Best China Blog" award in the Business-Law category from Chinalyst last month. China Law Blog took about 23% of the 2500 or so votes cast in the business-law category and beat out 30 other blogs (including us) for the top honor.

When you deal with someone across any cultural barrier, the Temptation is to treat confusion and reservations as though they are the result of something being lost in translation. Sometimes that's all it is. But often you're confused because things really aren't clear and whatever reservations you have are actually well founded. How do you know when the problem is a cultural one and when the issues are concrete and transcend cultural boundaries...?

I loved the first tip at China Law Blog: If the deal your Chinese counterpart is proposing to you does not seem to make economic sense to you, it almost certainly doesn't. I like the last tip almost as much; basically, if they say it is too complicated to explain, they're probably right - and you should walk away.

Read the whole list: Ten Tips On Negotiating The China Deal. It's well worth your time...