Intercultural Communication Studies VII: 1 1997-8 Hwang

Guanxi and Mientze: Conflict Resolution in Chinese Society

Kwang-Kuo Hwang

National Taiwan University

Abstract
This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework for illustrating the conflict resolution
models in Chinese society on the basis of author's previous analysis of Chinese cultural heritage.
In my book "Knowledge and Action," I analyzed the structure of Confucianism with a reference
to my theoretical model of "Face and favor: Chinese power game." According to my analysis of
Confucian ethics for ordinary people, interpersonal relationships in Chinese society are
classified into three categories: vertical in-group, horizontal in-group, horizontal out-group. When
an individual is in conflict with another in one of these three groups, the conflict resolution
models may be further classified into 12 categories according to four aspects of consideration,
namely whether s/he wants to maintain interpersonal harmony, whether s/he insists on attaining a
personal goal, the interactants’ ways of coordination, and what is the dominant response. The
author believes that this model can be viewed as a general framework for understanding Chinese
social behaviors.

This article proposes a conceptual framework to illuminate the conflict resolution in Chinese
society on the basis of the author's previous works on analyzing Chinese cultural heritage. In my
paper "Face and favor: Chinese power game" (Hwang, 1987), I developed a theoretical model for
explaining Chinese social interaction on the basis of symbolic interactionism and social exchange
theory; In my book "Knowledge and Action" (Hwang, 1995), I utilize this model as a scheme for
analyzing Chinese cultural tradition including Confucianism, Legalism, and Martial School by the
method of structuralism. I believe that the Confucian ethics for ordinary people as described in my
book "Knowledge and Action" is an archetype of Chinese social action which can be used to
understand the Chinese social interaction in various domains of life.
Laudan (1978), a major scholar in philosophy of science, advocated that the criterion for
judging the progress of a theory is its problem solving effectiveness, rather than its confirmability
or falsifiability. The most important standard for evaluating a theory is its effectiveness for
providing acceptable solutions to relevant problems. In other words, a significant feature of
scientific progress is to transform the anomaly and unsolved empirical problems into solved
problems. So long as an approximate statement of a problem can be derived from a theory, we

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may say that the particular problem had been solved by that theory.
Based on the preceding arguments, this article aims to unite three research traditions of
realism, structuralism, and pragmatism to develop a theoretical framework for illuminating
conflict resolution in Chinese society. It consists of two parts: the first part explains the Chinese
cultural tradition; while the second part derives major propositions of our framework from
discursive statements in the first part and cites empirical findings of previous research to support
arguments of those propositions.

Chinese Cultural Tradition

Confucian Ethics for Ordinary People

In my book "Knowledge and Action," I analyze the Chinese cultural tradition of
Confucianism by the method of structuralism with reference to the theoretical model of "Face and
favor: Chinese power game", and classify the Confucian ethics for arranging interpersonal
relationships into two categories, namely, ethics for the scholar and ethics for ordinary people.
It is the ethics for ordinary people that has a profound influence over Chinese social action
in daily life. In analyzing the structure of Confucianism, I adopted the justice theory of Western
psychology as a framework for understanding Confucian ethics for ordinary people: It proposed
"principle of respecting the superior" as a guideline for procedural justice, emphasizing that
decision should be made by one who occupies a superior position in dyadic interaction;
meanwhile, it advocated "principle of favoring the intimate" as rules of thumb for distributive
justice, insisting that a resource allocator should adopt different rules for exchange to interact with
people of various extent of intimacy just as what was described in my model "Face and favor:
Chinese power game."
The two parties of dyad interaction were conceptualized as petitioner (P) and resource
allocator (RA) in my model (see Figure 1). When P requests RA to distribute a certain kind of
resource under RA's control in such a way as to favor P, the first question RA has to consider is
"what is the guanxi (relationship) between us?"

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Figure 1
Intercultural Communication Studies VII: 1 1997-8 Hwang

The rectangle representing guanxi in this model was separated into two parts: The portion covered
with shadow was termed as "expressive component," denoting the extent of affective attachment
between the dyad; the blank portion was termed as "instrumental component," indicating that the
major goal for an individual to interact with the other party is to utilize their guanxi as an
instrument to acquire certain kind of resource.
Any interpersonal relationship comprises by these two components, while the composition
of these two components may change from one relationship to another. Therefore, we may
classify an individual's relationships with others into three categories depending on the
composition of these two components between them: Expressive ties, mixed ties, and instrumental
ties. As an influence of Confucian cultural tradition, a Chinese tends to use three kinds of social
exchange rule to interact with people of these three categories, i.e., need rule, renqing rule, and
equity rule.
In my book "Knowledge and Action," I indicated that the stages of the psychological
processes of RA, namely, judging the guanxi, choosing the appropriate social exchange rule, and
resolving the psychological conflict, are correspondent to the Confucian ethical system of Jen-Yi-
Li (benevolence-righteousness-propriety): The expressive component of guanxi represents
Confucian idea about Jen. Stated more explicitly, Confucian scholars advocated that one should
do benevolence to others in a hierarchical way, depending on the intimacy of one's relationship
with other. Based on this kind of hierarchical benevolence, the Confucian "righteousness" for
ordinary people is very different from Western concept about universal "justice" which is highly
valued in Christian civilization: Western culture emphasizes the importance of equity rule, while
Confucian culture tends to cultivate the need rule for expressive ties as well as the renqing rule for
the mixed tie.
Confucian also requests that once when an individual decides to choose a certain rule for
social exchange, his or her social action should follow the demand of rites (propriety) no matter
what kind of decision he or she made.

Great Self and Small Self

The Confucian ethics for ordinary people described in the previous section can be viewed as
an archetype for Chinese social action, since it describes the ideal type of dyadic interaction in
Chinese society. As I indicated in Figure 1, when RA is considering one's guanxi with others, it is
assumed that any of the interpersonal relationships is composed of an "instrumental component"
and an "expressive component." The term "instrumental component" implies that one's physical
self was born with various desires which may motivate one to acquire some resources to satisfy
one’s needs. In such a situation, one may use other as an instrument for acquiring a particular
resource. The term "expressive component" was used to denote the affection between one's social
self and other party. Confucianism urged that everybody should follow ethical norms for different
social rules in order to obtain adequate resources of life with the primary consideration of
maintaining social order.
Regulating by the Confucian ethical system of benevolence-righteousness-propriety,
Chinese are living in a network of guanxi which is relatively stable for a certain period of time. In
the process of socialization, they emphasize the importance of taking appropriate action at one's
position embedding in one's social network. Their selves tend to become a kind of interdependent
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self which is defined by one's social role and relationships, and which is drastically different from
the independent self of Western people (Markus and Kitayama, 1991).
It should be noted that interdependent self of a Chinese means a "social self." So far as
one's "physical self" is concerned, this self is still an independent one, and one must consider how
to obtain various resources from external environment to satisfy one's needs. Nevertheless, as an
influence of Confucian cultural tradition, the Chinese conceptualization of an "individual" is very
different from that of Western people: As a cultural product of Christianity, the self-contained
individualism of Western civilization encourages an individual to define the boundary between
one and other by the immediate surface surrounding one's physical body (Sampson, 1985; 1988).
Conceived by the ensembled individualism of Oriented tradition, though, an individual's "physical
self" is dependent upon others, his or her "social self" is embedded in a stable social network. The
boundary of an individual's "social self" may be flexible to include such other parties as one's
family members, one's friends, or one's colleagues, depending on who participate in the social
episode and its nature. In this case, an individual's physical self is usually called as "small self,"
while one's social self including others is termed as "great self," these two concepts were named
as "small body" and "great body" respectively by Mencius.
Confucian cosmology adopts a holistic perspective which believes that change of any
object in the universe is a manifestation of the encounter, transaction, and transformation between
two opposing forces of yin and yang. Human beings make no exception to this rule. Viewing from
the Confucian perspective, marriage between husband and wife is not only an unification of two
independent entities, but also a combination of two opposing but complementary forces of yin and
yang; with children as products of their unification. The creation of an individual's life is just the
same as the creation of any object in the universe. Based on this kind of cosmology, Chinese tend
to conceptualize the family as a whole and analogize it to a human body (the "great body"). For
instance, Chinese parents usually call their children as their own flesh and blood; while
brotherhood is frequently described as the relationship between hands and feet. Therefore, family
can be viewed as an archetype of Chinese "great self."
Similar ideas can be generalized to other types of vertical relationship. For examples, the
chief of a government office in Imperial China was privately called the "dragon head"; his trusted
subordinates were called "shin-fuh" (heart and belly), while their retainers and backeys might be
scorned as "jao-ya" (nails and teeth) by ordinary people (e.g., Sterba, 1978). The same labeling
system can also be used to denote roles occupying different positions in power structure of
contemporary Chinese organization (e.g., Silin, 1976; Walder, 1983).

Lian and Mientze

When a group of Chinese are interacting with others for a particular social affair, they may
form impressions about every participant involved in that affair and arrange them along either a
vertical dimension according to their relative role positions or according to the power structure of
that social network (Bond and Lee, 1981). An individual's awareness about a public image formed
in other's minds is called "face," which can be differentiated into two categories in Chinese
society: "Mientze" is determined by one's performance, and "lian" is related to one's moral
conduct (King, 1988). The greater performance one has, the higher position one occupies, or the
more resource one controls, the greater "mientze" one has. "Lian" has nothing to do with one's
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imply that Chinese still tend to use "need rule" to interact with family members through
expressive ties. The tendency to change in Chinese familism is also manifested in changes of their
value system. In my research on the modern transformation of Confucian values (Hwang, 1995), I
asked 633 Taiwanese elites to evaluate the relative importance of a series of value items to (1)
their parents, and to (2) themselves. The results showed that, compared to their parents, subjects
placed less importance on value items related to emphasizing the value of family with a
suppression of oneself, including "being a dutiful wife and loving mother," "having outstanding
children," "having decedents for the sake of filial piety," "maintaining precedence between seniors
and juniors". This means that they devote less effort than their last generation to maintain the
vertical power structure that is based the father/son axis inside the family. However, the
importance of "a pleasant family,” "a happy marriage," and " harmony" to them were the same as
that to their last generation.
The reasons for Chinese people to treasure the value of harmony mainly dervie from life
experience of their early socialization. Some cross-cultural research indicated that, in comparison
with American (Sollenberger, 1968), Israeli, Indian, or Ethiopian mothers (Ryback, Sanders,
Lorenz, and Koestenblatt, 1988), Chinese mothers were less likely to allow aggressive behavior
in their children. In another cross-cultural research, Niem and Collard (1972) asked Chinese
mothers from Taiwan and American mothers from Massachusetts to record their disciplining of
children's aggression over a thirty day period. They found roughly the same number of aggressive
episodes from these two groups of children, but Chinese children were more likely to receive
some form of parental discipline in response.
"Dutiful sons are the product of the rods", many Confucian scholars suggested that children
must be disciplined by both methods of punishment and giving advice (Lin and Wang, 1995).
Much empirical research indicats that Chinese parents may use harsh physical punishment
(Solomon, 1971; Wolf, 1964), withdrawal of rewards, or exclusion from the social life of the
family (Sollenberger, 1968; Niem and Collard, 1972) to inhibit aggressive behavior of their
children, depending on their social-class, with rural-urban or sub-ethnic variations; the primary
goal of child-rearing practices is to maintain harmonious family or neighborhood relations (Bond
and Wang, 1981).

Conflict Resolution Models in Chinese Society

Growing up in such a cultural background, a Chinese may acquire several models of conflict
resolution to deal with interpersonal conflict happening in different kinds of social relationships.
There were several Western scholars who had developed various models of conflict resolution or
conflict management by proposing different systems of classification. For examples, Hall(1969)
classified five types of conflict resolution along the dimensions of "achieving personal goal" and
"interpersonal consideration" (Filley, 1975); Thomas (1976) constituted five conflict resolution
models by the dimension of "assertive vs. unassertive" and "cooperative vs. Uncooperative;" and
Rahim (1986) proposed his classification system with the dimensions of "concern for self" and
"concern for others." Some Chinese scholars had adopted their conceptual framework and
measurement instruments to study the conflict resolution process in Chinese society (e.g.
Trubisky, Ting-Toomey, & Lin, 1991; Liu, 1993). But, I believe that the conceptual frameworks
developed in individualistic cultures by Western scholars cannot provide an adequate basis for
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describing conflict resolution models in Oriental culture. In order to construct an adequate theory
of conflict resolution in Chinese society, it is essential to take into consideration their cultural
value of harmony as well as their specific features of interpersonal relationships.
Therefore, I modified Hall's (1969) scheme, replaced his two dimensions with "pursuing vs.
discarding personal goal" and "maintaining vs. ignoring interpersonal harmony," and constructed
a preliminary model of Chinese conflict resolution (see Fig. 2). The model proposes that an actor
has to adopt a particular type of conflict resolution only when an opponent insists on attaining a
personal goal which is contradictory to the actor's goal. In such a situation, the actor has to ask
himself two questions: "Do I want to maintain interpersonal harmony?" "Do I want to pursue my
personal goal?"

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If one gives up a personal goal for the sake of maintaining interpersonal harmony, he or she
may choose the response of endurance. If one disregards interpersonal harmony and insists on
pursuing a personal goal, one may confront the other party. If one attempts to maintain
interpersonal harmony, but doesn't want to give up a personal goal, he or she may pretend to obey
publicly while doing his or her own business privately. If one is concerned about interpersonal
harmony, and is willing to yield a few steps, one may compromise with the other. If one decides
to disregard either interpersonal harmony or attainment of a personal goal, one may quarrel with
the other, and their relationship may come to a severance.
But these five types are insufficient to describe conflict resolution processes in Chinese
society. In order to provide a complete picture on this issue, it is necessary to take the Chinese
interpersonal relationships into consideration. Based on my analysis of Confucian ethics for
ordinary people, the relationships between two roles involved in interpersonal conflict can be
differentiated into vertical and horizontal relationships. The Confucian cultural ideal assumes that
all vertical relationships should be in-group relations, but horizontal ones might be either in-group
or out-group. Therefore, there are three kinds of interpersonal relationships: Vertical in-group,
horizontal in-group, and horizontal out-group. Viewing from my theoretical model about Chinese
power game, horizontal out-group must be a certain kind of instrumental ties, while horizontal in-
group should be expressive ties.
From the viewpoint of Western philosophy of science, most theoretical models constructed
on the basis of realism are synchronic theories. But, a significant feature of interpersonal networks
in collectivistic societies is their temporal continuity. Through we can construct our theoretical
framework about Chinese conflict resolution by taking a conflict episode as the unit of analysis, it
should be noted that a conflict episode may last for a period of time. The conflict resolution model
which an actor adopts may also change from time to time. Therefore, when we want to construct a
theoretical framework for managing conflicts with people of these three types of interpersonal
relationship, it is necessary to consider the following aspects: (1) harmony maintenance, (2)
personal goal attainment, (3) coordination strategies, and (4) dominant responses. (See Table 1)
Table 1

[Image not available online. Contact ICS editor for image use.]

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When a subordinate is in conflict with his superior in vertical relationship, he or she has to protect
the superior's face for the sake of maintaining interpersonal harmony. In this case, the dominant
response may be endurance. If one wants to expressive an opinion, he or she usually takes the way
of indirect communication. If one intends to pursue a personal goal, he or she may pretend to obey
but pursue a personal goal privately.
The conflict management strategies one may utilize in horizontal relationships depend on
whether the other party is an in-group or out-group member. When an actor is in conflict with an
in-group member, they may communicate directly. For the maintenance of harmonious
relationship, they may "give face" to each other and reach a compromise. When one of them
insists on attaining his personal goal in spite of other's feeling, they may have intramural fight for
a long time. On the other hand, if both of them insist on attainment of their personal goal, they
may treat each other as out-group members and have a confrontation with the opposite party.
Meanwhile, they may disregard interpersonal harmony and strive to protect their own face. In
order to resolve the conflict situation, a third party may be invited to serve as a mediator for
intervention, and their relationship may be severed as a consequence of their conflict.
When a superior insists on the attainment of a personal goal disregarding feelings of
subordinates in a vertical relationship, subordinates may also react to oppose the superior, and
their relationship may also come to a severance.
These are the major propositions in the theoretical framework on conflict resolution in
Chinese society. In the following sections, I will further elaborate these propositions for the three
types of relationship stated above.

Vertical In-Group
Before our discussion on vertical relationship, it should be emphasized that the Confucian
ethics for ordinary people as described in previous section of this article is a formal structure that
can be used to interpret social interaction between different roles. According to the Confucian
cultural ideal, such relationships as father/son, husband/wife, senior/junior brother, and
superior/subordinate, should be arranged in a vertical way. However, I am not a cultural
determinist. From the perspective of constructionism (Berger and Luckman, 1966; Gergen, 1985),
the relationships between people in daily life are constructed in the process of social interaction.
Though traditional culture may define the arrangement of role relationship in a particular way
under the impact of foreign culture, it is very likely that people may construct their relationship in
a completely different way according to the resources they held and the agreement they made. For
example, in a study of marriage violence in Taiwan, Chen (1992) divided her female informants
into two groups on the basis of their experience with marriage violence. Among the group who
experienced violence, 65% reported that their husbands were more powerful in deciding family
affairs; 18% said they were more powerful, and the rest reported equal power. Among the group
without violent experience, 50% got equal power, 30% perceived themselves as the more
powerful ones, only 13% reports their husbands were more powerful. In other words,
Confucianism advocated that the relationship between husband and wife should be arranged as
husband-superior/ wife-subordinate; but in real life, the vertical relationship can be reversed, it
can also be arranged as an equal power one.
It seems that the above statistics indicate a correlation between the experience of marriage
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violence and the family power structure arrangement of husband-superior/ wife-subordinate. But I
do not intend to discuss this issue here. What I want to say is conflict resolution models can be
used in different relationships by the actor.

Forbearance
It was mentioned in previous section that Confucianism emphasizes the value of harmony.
When one is conflicting with someone else within his or her social network, the first thing one has
to learn is "forbearance.. The concept of "forbearance" (ren) has a profound cultural foundation in
China (Lee, 1997). All the philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism provide ideas for
supporting the practice of "forbearance." In its broadest sense, "forbearance" means to control and
to suppress one's emotion, desire, and psychological impulse. In Fig. 2, "endurance" means not
only restraining one's psychological impulse, but also giving up one's personal goal, for a prior
consideration of maintaining a harmonious relationship. Moreover, there is another implication of
ren, "perseverance" (jian-ren) means to obviate all difficulties to attain one's final goal.

Endurance
As I mentioned before, Confucian ethics for ordinary people proposed the "principle of
respecting superior" as its procedural justice which advocated that decisions in social interaction
should be made by the superior who occupies a higher position. In actual life, when a superior
with power requests the subordinate to follow his demands, usually the later can do nothing but to
obey. The subordinate who has his or her own goal may thus experience a feeling of strong
conflict, but, under power domination of the superior, he or she tends to give up the personal goal
by following the practice of endurance. Li (1995) interviewed a group of young couples residing
in Taipei about their adjustment to marriage life. Her research indicated that "endurance" and self-
control is a strategy they frequently used to cope with life stress. For instance, a daughter-in-law
living with her husband's parents after her marriage told her a story:
"I got much less time for myself after I was married. I almost stayed at home all day.... For
example, last time there were two or three underwear to be washed, I thought I can do it on the
other day. But, my father-in-law wasn't happy. He didn't like to see any clothes uncleaned
overnight. He told my husband, and my husband told me about that. It was 11 o'clock in night that
I washed them with tears."

Indirect Communication
Forbearance cannot solve one's problem in many situations. When a subordinate disagrees
with his or her superior's decision, a prior consideration of protecting the superior's face may
inhibit him or her to express disagreement publicly or directly. In this case, one may ask
somebody in their social network to send the message to the superior.
I have said that Chinese are living in various kinds of social networks. As it was indicated in
my theoretical model of "Face and favor: Chinese power game," relationships within any dyad
may be regarded as either very close or only insignificant. An old Chinese saying goes that "Do
not talk too deep when you are not close enough with the other," when an individual believes that
the expressive component of his relationship with the superior is not strong enough for direct
communication, he or she has should better express an opinion through people close to the
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superior. For example, Silin (1976) studied the operation and leadership style of a large scale
business in Taiwan by participant observation. He found when the top leader of company speaks
in public, the subordinates would never raise any question to challenge him or to injure his
dignity. If they really believe that the leader's opinions are inappropriate, they usually ask people
trusted by the leader to pass the message for them in private.

Confrontation
In a power structure emphasizing "principle of respecting the superior," when the superior
ignores feelings of the subordinates and insists on the execution of his will, the inferior may react
to fight against him. Both parties "tear off their faces" and confront with open conflict. As it was
indicated in Chen's (1992) research on 55 cases of marriage violence in Taiwan, a majority of
female victims reported that their reactions to the violent treatment from their husbands for the
first time were crying or keeping silence (25 cases, 45%); some of them bawled back (17 cases,
23%) or fought back (7 cases, 13%), while a few of them went back to their parents' houses (3
cases, 5%). It should be noted that even when the victims told their parents how they had suffered,
their parents usually suggested that women should forbear about that. Their parents-in-laws also
gave them similar advice by saying: because their sons had long been like that and would never
change. So, it would be better to follow the policy of "opening one eye, with another eye closed."
As the conceptual framework about conflict resolution in Table 1 illustrated, the dominant
response of both victims and their family members to their husbands' violent behaviors was
"endurance." But, some of victims may fight back for the status of equal rights which may lead to
"confrontation." At this time, the vertical relationship between them changes into a horizontal one.
According to the Confucian cultural ideal, the interpersonal relationships inside the family should
be arranged on the basis of "benevolence" (jen), which was represented by the strong expressive
component of the expressive ties in the theoretical model of Fig. 1. If the superior doesn't note the
change, but keeps on imposing his will over the subordinate, the latter may not want to forbear
anymore. The more serious the conflicts between them, the weaker the expressive component that
remains in their relationship. When there remains only the instrumental component, both sides
may calculate carefully about their own interests in maintaining the relationship. Once they
believe that divorce is beneficial to both of them, their relationship may be severed.

Caring about Other's Face in a Perfunctory Manner

It is easy to understand that not all vertical relationships have a strong basis of expressive
component. For example, the superior/subordinate relationship in contemporary industrial or
commercial organizations is primarily based on instrumental component. Its expressive
component should be fostered purposely by both parties (especially the superior side) in their
daily interaction. Under such circumstance, when interpersonal conflicts occur to weaken their
expressive tie, both parties still have to interact with each other within the same power structure.
In this case, they are forced to keep the superficial harmony by following the social manners. As a
cultural ideal of Confucianism, "politeness" without any ingredient of "benevolence" is called by
Chinese as "caring about other's face superficially" (fu-yeu mien-tze).
Huang (1995) mentioned a case in her research on Chinese interpersonal harmony and
conflicts: A female subject who had once conflicted with her boss said how she coped with the
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situation:
After that, I don't talk about business seriously with him. Since I hate him, I chatter to him
about trivial matters, and nothing serious. I will never go to see him when there is no
necessity. When we meet, I am able to keep a perfunctory harmony with him. Yes, it is
social, you may say it is insincere." (pp. 264)

Taking Care of Other's Face

This is not a situation Confucians like to see. As I said in the last section, the Confucian
ideal advocated that all the vertical relationships within a family or a group should be constructed
on the basis of "benevolence" (expressive component) to constitute a united whole. I also
mentioned that whether an individual will develop an in-group feeling of "great-self" with other or
not is certainly a psychological matter. When an individual's relationship with a particular family
member or a colleague worsens and its expressive component decreases, outsiders may still
perceive them as an "in-group." In this case, they have to do their best to take case of other's face
in front of outsiders and to maintain a superficial harmony so as to let everybody under their own
face. For example, a male subject reported in Li's (1995) research:
"Now they are living in their own way, and we are living in ours. Though we are living
under the same roof, they sleep in that room, and we sleep in this room. We eat separately, my
parents cook their food, my wife and I cook ours......The two old parents still want to keep the
superficial ethics. They are afraid of being scorned by relatives and friends. Though they blame
me and accuse of my conduct against filial piety everyday, they still tell our relatives and friends
that they have filial children." (Li, 1995:285)
Huang's(1995)research mentioned how a male employee working in a company "packages"
his relationship with his supervisor:
"I am able to 'package' our relationship. I will do anything to make outsiders get an
impression that we get along quite well. Sometimes, I will respect his authority as a supervisor. So
long as his requests are not very unfair, I will follow rather than resist them indiscriminately.
When we are facing outsiders, I will stand at the same front with him and fight against outsiders.
Because a department is a whole, we should maintain the vertical relation of up and down. This
is a kind of work ethic. So I would make outsiders feel that I follow instruction. This is a
superficial harmony. Don't let each other feel too embarrassing, it will be enough to maintain the
'public' part. Business is business." (Huang, 1996:262)

Obey Publicly and Defy Privately

In a power structure emphasizing vertical relationship, when a subordinate feels conflicts
with the superior and knows that it is useless to argue with the other of dominant power, he or she
may accept the superior's request in public, but do one’s own business in private. In contemporary
China, this pretending to obey is called "the superior has a policy to impose on , while the inferior
has a trick to cope with it."
In imperial China, officials of local government usually used this strategy to deal with the
endless orders and demands from the central government. According to a sociological analysis by
Zou(1995), because the vast territory and the inconvenient transportation of imperial China, it is
very hard for the central government to understand every detail of the locals. They tend to ask the
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local government to obey their orders regardless of local situations. Bounded by the Confucian
ideology, the local government dares not to resist against orders from the top, so they have to
adopt the strategy of pretending to obey to deal with the superior.
In the daily life of Chinese people, the inferior in a power structure may use a similar
strategy to deal with the superior. In her research on the contents and functions of Chinese
interpersonal relationships, Li(1997) mentioned how a medical doctor's son used this strategy to
deal with his father.
"When he asked me to do something, if I had an opposite opinion, I would tell him that I
didn't like to do his way before. But he had a bad temper. If you argue with him, he becomes more
tough. Because it is useless to argue with him, now I say 'yes, yes, yes' to any of his requests, but I
still do my own way. In any case, we won't talk more than a few sentences when we meet every
day. My father is always busy. He sleeps till eleven to twelve o'clock in the morning and works at
the clinic from 2 P.M. to 10 P.M.. I do my own business in my room, I won't face him." (Li,
1997:23)

Horizontal In-Group
The horizontal relationship could be said to be the most important interpersonal relationship
in contemporary societies where industrial and commercial activities are major ways of
production. However, the arrangement of horizontal relationship was not the major concern of
Confucian ethics. In the five cardinal ethics stressed by Confucius, only "friends" belong to the
horizontal relationship. However, as I mentioned before, the arrangement of interpersonal
relationship is constructed in the process of dyadic interaction in daily life. Any kind of
relationship can be constructed as a horizontal relationship.
In my theoretical model of "Face and favor: Chinese power game," horizontal relationships
consist in some cases of expressive ties and in all cases of instrumental ties. The reason for an
individual to establish instrumental ties with somebody else according to a particular formal role
system is to acquire certain resources to satisfy his or her needs. Both parties involved in this
relationship control some resources which are desired by the other party, so they can proceed
making exchange with each other on a basis of equality.
In the "psychological process of RA" of Fig. 1, the instrumental ties and mixed ties are
separated by a dotted line. It means that, compared with boundary surrounding expressive ties
within a family, the psychological boundary between these two kinds of relationships is relatively
weak. The P may have an instrumental relationship of out-group to RA originally. Through the
process of "pulling guanxi" or "reinforcing guanxi," P may penetrate the psychological boundary,
get into the category of mixed ties and become a friend of RA. On the contrary, the relatives or
friends of mixed ties may become a kind of instrumental ties or come to a severance because of
intense conflicts or estrangement of relationship between them.
Giving Face
Understanding the significant features of horizontal relationship, we may discuss the conflict
resolution models listed in Table 1. According to my theoretical model of "Face and favor:
Chinese power game," when RA defines P as a member of his in-group who belongs to the
category of mixed ties, they tend to interact with each other in terms of renqing rule and have to
pay special attention to maintain other's face. If they disagree about something, they may have a
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direct communication for the sake of seeking a solution which is acceptable to both parties. In
such a situation, Chinese always say that "we are all brothers, it is needless to argue." In the
process of negotiation, they may take various ways and ask others to "give me a face." "Quarrel
makes both sides ugly; while concession enables both to have their own shares." In order to keep
their harmonious relationship, they tend to concede and "give face" to each other. Therefore, both
of them are able to "get off the stage" and compromise with other party.
I argued in the previous section that a couple may construct their relationship either in a
traditional vertical way or in a modern horizontal way. In the later case, only if there is a strong
expressive component existing in their relationship, even when they argue about trivia in daily
life, it would not hurt their feelings. Meanwhile, if one of the couple (usually the male) uses
verbal or nonverbal communication to ask for compromise, "gives face" to the other, and enable
her/him to "get off the stage," it is quite possible that their unhappiness will be eliminated. For
instances, Li(1995) mentioned how a husband may dissolve the problem after quarreling with his
wife.
"I can't remember any specific case of quarreling with her. Each time we have a quarrel, I
smile to her first, then she smiles, too."
"When she was angry, I could not say anything to her.....we may quarrel about something
nonsense out of trivia. Finally, I keep quiet when she was angry. I would wait and talk to her
when she was not angry anymore."

Fight Overtly and Struggle Covertly

When one insists on the attainment of his personal goal without "giving face" to the other in
horizontal relationship, the other may be forced to yield for various reasons. In this case, their
relationship may become worse and consist of no expressive component any more. When they
meet with each other, they may pretend to take care of other's face by some superficial forms of
propriety. Anyone who fails to do this might be criticized as "impolite" or "uncultivated." For
instance, in Huang's(1997) research, a male informant talked about his relationship with one of his
colleagues:
"Social manners mean what we have to do when you encounter someone, such as saying
hello or exchanging a smile." He said: "It is important to follow social manners, because one
should be cultivated with some basic terms for being a human. For example, I don't like to talk
with the person we just met. But, when he walked by your side, it is unnecessary to let him know
that you disliked him. Saying hello does not mean that I like him. At least, it enables me not to
think about how disgusting he is and not to make new frown." He said: "Interaction following
social manners may relieve us of psychological burden. You don't need think too much, and can
get temporary peace without thinking about the discord with him." (Huang, 1996:245)
When two parties in a formal organization are required to negotiate for some controversial
issues by their social roles, their dissatisfactions with each other may "emerge from under table."
"Covert struggle" becomes "overt fight" which may make their relationship worse. In Huang's
(1996) research, an informant was manager of quality control department in a factory. The task
structure at the working site made him conflict with chief of the production department frequently.
Though these conflicts were mediated by high-ranking administrators of the company, his
attitudes were tough and the atmosphere was always deadlock. Even the chief of the production
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department apologized and the conflict was solved temporarily, some grudges remained in their
minds.
He said: "After so many disputes, my requirement for quality is not loosened but more
tightened. This is my responsibility. Beside quality, I also have my sensibility. Since he always
make troubles for me, I just want to have an eye for eye. Although I had some ideas to tease him, I
never take the action. Actually, I always question him and this embarrasses him. Needless to say, I
often exaggerate the products' degrees of danger to scare him." (Huang, 1996:260)
In the process of long-term fight overtly and covertly, both sides may utilize various
schemes of trick to deal with the other. Chinese also have a cultural tradition of using stratagems
in daily life (Wang, 1996). Stories about "thirty-six stratagems" are well-known to many Chinese
(Chiao, 1981, 1985). As I pointed out in my book "Knowledge and Action" (Hwang, 1995), the
utilization of stratagems comes from military tactics of the Martial School. When the actor defines
the opposite as an out-group member of instrumental tie, or when the expressive component of a
vertical relationship disappears, it is most likely for an individual to use strategic behavior. For
example, in her study on relationship between mother- and daughter-in-law, Che (1997) reported
an interesting case:
"One day, hitting upon a sudden idea, she put her feet on a table and asked me to cut nails
for her. You see, I never did this even for my mother, and she asked me to cut her nails! Her
daughter was there, she didn't ask her to cut, but asked me! You see how I dealt with her."
"Why you didn't reject her?'
"If I rejected, I will offend not only her but also everybody in our family. Because she said I
couldn't bow down, I couldn't see. As her daughter-in-law, you can't reject. So, I said, where?
Let me see. Because I always have my glasses on my eyes, if I cut you, you must be tolerant. Ha, I
said it first, you must be tolerant. Then I cut, she said 'Oh!' I said 'Sorry, sorry, I can't see it!' Don't
reject her immediately, otherwise she will ask you to do many things and tell your husband."
(Che, 1997:53-54)

Horizontal Out-Group

Confrontation
When the covert struggle emerges from the under table and becomes an overt fight, the
outburst of conflict may make the parties lose their tempers. They may confront each other for
some substantial goals or interests; they also find some excuses to quarrel with each other for
relieving their inner hostilities or tensions. This kind of conflict for "striving face" or "striving for
vindication" was called as "autistic conflict" by Western psychologists, while the former was
termed as "realistic conflict" (Holmes and Miller, 1976).
There was a series of previous research which indicated that Chinese aggressive behaviors
towards out-group members are very drastic. They may attack the opposite by either public abuse
or collective violence (Bond and Wang, 1981). Ward (1970) interpreted this phenomenon in terms
of the absence of peaceful modes of conflict resolution between out-groups in Chinese culture.
Even in a situation where verbal confrontation is supposed to be requisite of a particular role
relationship, disputants may use physical aggression instead of verbal debate. For instance, my
book "The Whirlpool of Power" describes how legislators of different parties are engaged in a
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power struggle on arena of parliament since Taiwan adopted the democratic system (Hwang,
1997).
Kuo(1994) examined the argumentative strategies used in legislative question and answer
session from parliamentary interpolations in Taiwan. He found that most questions from
opposition legislators were designed to blame or criticize government officials, whose anticipation
prompted them to become defensive. However, several combative officials did not respond to
challenges or accusations with justifications or denials but with counter-actions identical to the
accusing questions in surface structure. Hostility in this type of adversarial dialogue was
frequently conveyed by sarcasm. On the other hand, embarrassed officials occasionally offered
conciliatory responses, including the invoking of shared wants and social memberships, to get out
of specific predicament.

Mediation
When Chinese people get involved in intense conflict, third parties in their social network
tend to intervene between them to reduce the likelihood of spiraling violence (Brown, 1977; Ma,
1992). The mediator usually is someone who occupies a higher position in their network. His
major job is to separate the opposing sides and to find out a solution without any loss of "face" to
either side (Bond and Wang, 1981). In order to achieve this goal, he is likely to ask both sides:
"For the sake of my face, don't quarrel anymore." "Stop the quarrel, or you will lose our face"
(Zai, 1995). If the mediator has sufficient face, then the parties may cease hostility without losing
face because they can construe their peace-making as protecting the mediator's face (Cohen,
1967).

Conclusion
In this article, I synthesize the research traditions of realism, structuralism, and pragmatism
to construct a theoretical framework about models of conflict resolution in Chinese society on the
basis of my previous research on Chinese cultural tradition. A series of qualitative research studies
were cited to support the major arguments of this article, because empirical data of case study may
preserve the context of interpersonal conflict which should be studied with extraordinary
carefulness in Oriental society. Of course, the major propositions of this article can also be
confirmed by quantitative research so long as the social context has been taken into consideration.
For example, an cross-cultural research on the resolving procedure of interpersonal conflict
indicated that, compared with American subjects, their Chinese counterparts preferred bargaining
between two sides and mediation by third party to negotiate for a scheme of compromise. They
relatively dislike confrontation with each other and being judged by third parties. They also
dislike the inquisitorial adjudication with which the third party collects relevant information to
make a judgment (Leung, 1987).
Chen (1994) went a further step by taking into consideration the context of interpersonal
relationship in which an individual has to choose a resolving procedure. Asking 114 students of
National Taiwan University to serve as subjects, his empirical research indicated that the subjects
tend to choose a conforming response in vertical relationship with high expressive component;
they prefer to accept the superior's authoritarian decision in vertical relationship with low
expressive component. In horizontal relationship with high expressive component, they prefer the
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procedure of bargaining; while in horizontal relationship with high instrumental component, they
prefer the procedure of mediation. Chen's data provided remarkable support to the main
propositions of this article.

* This paper was written while the author was supported by a grant from National Science
Council, Republic of China, NSC 85-2417-H002-032-G6. The author wishes to express his
sincere gratitude to Mr. Chuang, P.C., Miss Hung, Y.Y., Miss Yang, Y.H., Miss Lu, H.M.,
and Miss Wei, C.F. for their help in preparing this manuscript.

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