Introduction

Since the late 1970’s, China has been implementing reform and opening policy.The economy has been increasing steadily at a high rate and has become the focus of the world attention.The opened China is in the ongoing process of incorporating itself with the rest of the world, accompanied by frequent economic and cultural exchanges.In such circumstances of social transformation,conflict and dispute happen all the time, while mediation, as an important alternative means of dispute resolution in China, has been a frequently employed technique for thousands of years.Hence, a close look into the strategies and tactics adopted in Chinese mediation, especially, those with typical Chinese characteristics, has significance in studying and understanding the socio-economic and cultural aspects of Chinese society.

Since the 1960’s, both Chinese and western scholars (Cohen,1966, Lubman, 1967&1999, Palmer, 1989, Ji, 1990, Clarke, 1991,Wall & Blum, 1991, Fu, 1992, Qiang, 2001, Li, 2004) have performed a number of fruitful studies on Chinese mediation.However, to date, very few studies are on neutrality and power distribution in Chinese mediation.

As a normative ideal in western world, mediator neutrality is central to the conceptualization and evaluation of mediators.For example, Harrington and Merry (1988) interviewed six mediators and all defined neutrality as “the essence of their role”(p.729).In his review of statements of mediation standards, neutrality was seen as “central to the very definition of dispute mediation and the role of the mediator”(Hale & Nix, 1997, p.337), “a central obligation”(Tracy & Spradin, 1994, p.117), “of the highest value and concern”and “a fundamental element of the mediator’s role”(Cohen et al., 1999, p.341, p.347).(https://www.daowen.com)

The author of this book is interested in whether mediator neutrality in China is something that plays out in the same way and to the same extent as it does in contemporary Anglo-American practice.If neutrality is not the basis for legitimization in Chinese practice in the way that it is in community mediation in America, on what basis does Chinese mediators legitimatize their practice? How do they gain power during the mediation event? Is there a different conception of neutrality, or is there a different conception of the mediator’s role altogether? How would this be reflected in mediator practices?

This book is developed in the following steps: First, a comparison of the histories of mediation practices, values and the roles of neutrality and power distribution in China and the United States will be presented.This section will be concluded with a set of research questions.Then, the major strategies and tactics in Chinese mediation will be discussed and evidenced with examples from mediation transcripts from audio-recordings of real mediation sessions in China.In the analysis phase, tactics typical of Chinese mediation characteristics will be discussed about first,followed by the tactics that are also adopted by American mediators to a different extent.Discourse analysis will be employed to analyze the transcripts and the results of the analysis will be used to respond to the questions posed in the earlier section.Finally, based on these analyses, conclusions will be drawn about the major characteristics in Chinese mediation compared to the mediation techniques in the United States with special attention to aspects of neutrality and power, and their social and cultural antecedents and consequences.Note that this study is not meant to be a comparative study of the mediation of China and the US.The focus of the study is on Chinese mediation.