In September 1972, the Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka came to Beijing to normalize relations with China. During the final round of talks, Zhou Enlai wrote out six characters from the Analects and gave them to Tanaka: 言必信，行必果, “Words must be kept, and deeds must be carried through.”
Tanaka answered with six characters of his own: 信为万事之本, “Trust is the root of all things.”
On April 27 and 28, 2018, Xi Jinping and the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi held what China’s Foreign Ministry called an “informal meeting” (非正式会晤) in Wuhan. The ministry said that the meeting would deepen mutual trust and set the general direction for relations between the two countries.
According to a report on Sina, the meeting had no set agenda. No agreements were signed and no joint document was issued. The two leaders walked beside East Lake and then took a boat ride. The report described the format in three short phrases: 散散步，喝喝茶，聊聊天, “take a walk, drink some tea, have a chat.”
“Once, ‘a good deal must be done at the wine table.’ For many officials in charge of attracting investment, this had become a fixed way of thinking.” The business paper National Business Daily wrote this in June 2017.
In June 2016, the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection reported a campaign in Anhui against jiuzhuo bangong (酒桌办公), “doing office work at the wine table.” It targeted officials who used the wine table “to ask for funds, to chase projects, to compete for places in evaluations or to seek improper benefits.”
On the evening of November 11, 2014, Xi Jinping met Barack Obama at Yingtai in Zhongnanhai. “As night deepened, the two heads of state kept talking, and strolled to the Yingxun Pavilion for tea.” Xi said the two countries should talk often and closely, “not about matters case by case,” but frankly and in depth about fundamental questions. Xinhua later reported that the tea, planned for thirty minutes, lasted nearly an hour.
On February 21, 1972, Zhou Enlai gave a welcome banquet for Richard Nixon in the Great Hall of the People. After the two sides had exchanged toasts, Zhou went with his glass to the American officials and toasted each of them in turn.
According to an account in Huanqiu, the Maotai with which Zhou entertained guests such as Nixon and Kissinger was said to have been stored for more than thirty years. When Zhou toasted, he said “ganbei” but did not drain his glass. He only touched its rim with his lips and greeted the other person with a smile and a look.
On July 20, 2023, Xi Jinping received Henry Kissinger in Beijing. “You have visited China more than a hundred times,” he said.
After Kissinger’s death in November 2023, the Foreign Ministry called him “an old friend and good friend of the Chinese people, a pioneer and builder of China-US relations.” People’s Daily quoted the same formula. The Foreign Ministry added: “The Chinese people value feeling and loyalty. We will not forget old friends.”
一回生，二回熟 Strangers the first time, acquaintances the second. The Handian dictionary explains: at the first meeting people feel like strangers, at the next meeting they know each other. Its example comes from Zhou Libo’s novel The Hurricane: “We were strangers the first time, and now we know each other. Be sure to drop in.”
多个朋友多条路 One more friend, one more road.
In April 1971, at the world table tennis championships in Nagoya, China invited the US team to visit. From April 10 to 17, nine American players and four officials were in China. They were the first American athletes admitted to the People’s Republic since 1949. Mao Zedong explained the move: “For 22 years we could never come to terms… so we played ping-pong.”
The episode is known in Chinese as 小球转大球, the small ball turns the big ball.
In Rural China (乡土中国), the sociologist Fei Xiaotong describes rural society as a society of people who know one another. There, he writes, “trust does not rest on respect for contracts.” It comes from “the reliability of knowing the rules of conduct so well that one acts without thinking.”
Acquaintances, he notes, say: “We are all acquaintances. A greeting is enough, why say more?” In modern society people fear that “the spoken word is no proof,” so “they make a mark and sign their names. Only then does law begin.”
熟人 An acquaintance, a person one knows well. Its opposite is 生人, a stranger, literally a “raw person.”
靠谱 Reliable, trustworthy. Said of a person who does things in a sensible way.
拉关系 To pull connections. To make friends with someone one barely knows, for a purpose.
走后门 To go through the back door. To get things done through improper private connections.
在家靠父母，出门靠朋友 At home, rely on parents. Away from home, rely on friends.