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Q: Does "Guanxi" imply respect ?
If two people meet, shake hands etc. they are building guanxi. In this relationship forming it may be a pure business transaction. Person A knows Person B can fabricate that particular type of socks he needs. Person B has someone t flock of his socks to. These two people would now know that they can utilize each other for something. But do they respect each other ?
In my mind, the traditional sense of relationship building is based on respect. If you respect a person then you will be comfortable interacting with them for whatever purpose you may need. In the guanxi sense it is purely a matter of knowing how you can exploit others.
Opinions ?
I think guanxi and respect are two very different things, here and in other places too. In an ideal situation, there is overlap between guanxi and respect but it's not necessarily a prerequisite. As you implied, guanxi is about self-gain...respect has very little to do with that.
As far as I have come to understand "guangxi", it isw the art of building relationships, and doing favors to others in the hope to "collect" on those favors in the future to better oneself. In my book, that bears no relationship to "respect" at all, but it also does not mean that guangxi could exist with mutual respect, but in my opinion seldom done in China.
Depends on what you mean by Guanxi; if you mean building above board business / personal relationships, i.e. networking, then often, (but not always) yes, it does infer respect. If it does not then it is your problem, after all you are selecting the people you want to network with.
If however by 'guanxi' you mean the blatant corruption of the 'hongbao' then no it does not imply respect; it implies you are acknowledging the other person has a position of power / authority that you admit you wish to use / access / bypass, and in an obtuse way the receiver implies you hold a position of blackmail power over him / her, but no, I would not say that 'deal' implies respect in any way.
Scandinavian:
I see your point that the interpretation of the word can lead to different answers. I guess my question could also have been "Can you have guanxi without respect?" and then the second part of your answer is "Yes you can have guanxi witout respect"
you cant conclude that there is no respect involved, but its not necessarily the main part of the concept...
You want to know what Guanxi is?
You know when you are playing a video game and you have a health bar and it goes up. That's like Guanxi... if you make a fool of yourself or do something generally frowned upon it goes down... but if you are rich and know important people it goes up.
So Guan xi is a reflection of your public health bar... if it is empty... you may as well be a ghost because to many your life holds no value.
The problem is this gauge can never be full enough but it can empty very quickly. It's kind of screwed up but that's how they roll here.
That's the guangxi system as you perceive it, but the truth is it's the same system that works back home. Some call it networking, personally i've never had no time for it. I grew up on a farm, and in such an environment, having a large cock is beneficial. Cockerels are great bringers of wealth to a farmer and having a large cock is...........................oh, I can't be bothered.
