Westerners are often confronted with the very-last-minute decisions by their Chinese counterparts. Once, until I put the CEO of my European client on the plane, I still did not know whether he would get received by the mayor of the Chinese city (of our joint venture). The best response I got from the mayor’s team, after weeks of discussion, was that normally it should be ok with the meeting date, but they could not guarantee, nor could they propose a precise time due to the constantly changing context. The confirmation finally arrived at 11:00pm for a meeting next day.
Another frustration comes from the last-minute change of a fixed appointment. While Westerners see it as a lack of respect or a breach of engagement, most Chinese feel they are simply being flexible (because the circumstances have changed), and find it hard to understand why their Western counterparts are “overreacting “ to “a simple schedule rearrangement” …
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/luxuefei_china-learning-linkedin-activity-6731854577206874112-IY9L