One thing here is that being invited to someone's daughters wedding in Chinese circles isn't nearly as big a deal as getting invited to someone's daughter's wedding in the US. *Everyone* gets invited to someone's daughter's wedding. There is an economic reason for this in that what tends to happen is that weddings are extremely lavish and expensive affairs, so the more people that you invite to the wedding, the more people you split the cost of the wedding over.

Also there is a way that Chinese organizations have used to get out of a personal social obligation which is to have someone that doesn't have social connections involved in the decision making. The social connection is personal. which mean that if you are off the hook if the decision making process involve someone that doesn't have a personal connections.

The Chinese government uses this since invariably the Governor of a province or county administrator is someone that rises through the bureaucracy and has local connections, whereas the Party Secretary is invariably an outsider that doesn't have any personal local connections. The Chinese military and financial regulatory systems are set up to constantly move people around so that they *don't* have local connections.

One test that you can use to see if it really is a friendship is to ask if you'd be seeing each other if money weren't involved. This applies to Chinese weddings. One thing that I have noticed with Chinese weddings is that people that are really in the inner circle of social relationships, don't give large gifts or in some situations any gifts at all. The other thing that I've noticed is that Chinese people tend to be a lot less formal and polite with people that they have very deep social relationships with.

Also, you know that you have a deep relationship with someone not if you get invited to a wedding, but if you get invited to a funeral.

When it comes to business, or with official, it is even more complicated. If you are invited to the wedding could mean numerous things: a close friend or a potential opportunity for "gift".

Whether it will secure or hurt your business relationship also depend the personality involved. Gift may work on one person and may not on others.

There is no fast and hard rules. And there is no easy answer as you seem to indicate here.

We, as supplier, don't like to pay purchasers/quality inspector commission, we don't like to bribe them unless we have to. In the business practise, the purchaser and quality inspector will ask for benefit(commission, money, gift, meal, or sex bribe), we are confident in the competitiveness of our products, the quality, the price. But in many cases, if we refuse their request, we will lose the order, we will fail the test, we will lose the business.

We are not alone, as I have worked in 5 to 6 companies, from manufacturer to trade company, the situation are all the same.

I would look at the issue from society development point of view. I mean the legal system, the penalty system or to put it precisely, the law enforcement in China are not mature or developed enough to tackle the commercial corruption issue, commercial corruption is no difference to corruption in the political area.

However, Dan, I do agree with your point, that we should not mix business with social relationship.

In China, we have an old saying "亲兄弟,明算帐", to put it in English "Even brothers keep careful accounts. "

BLOGGER NOTE: I removed this commenter's website address because I did not think it wise to include it when this person pretty much admits to having engaged in bribery.