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Word file #018Cooling offBig ideas

What does guanxi mean?

关系guānxi

Say itGWAHN-sheenoun (also used before nouns)

Character by character
  1. 关guāninvolve
  2. 系xìrelate to

A network of personal connections and relationships in Chinese settings that people can use for favors, access, or professional advantage.

Written by the Second Language TeamWritten

Guanxi is a person’s network of personal connections in a Chinese setting. People can use these connections to get favors, access, or a professional advantage [1]. If a friend’s uncle introduces you to the right manager and your contract suddenly moves forward, that is guanxi at work. You will meet the word mostly in business writing, news, travel guides, and university courses about China. Oxford’s learner’s dictionary treats it as an uncountable noun, as in “good guanxi with the authorities” [2].

English speakers usually say GWAHN-shee. Some British dictionaries give “gwan-SEE,” with the stress at the end. The Mandarin word is 关系 guānxi (traditional 關係). Guān has a high, flat tone. Xi is short and light, with no tone of its own, and the pinyin x sounds close to English “sh.” Some dictionaries write the word guānxì, with a falling tone on the second syllable, and you will hear both. In English, guanxi is a neutral word, but writers often use it to hint that someone got ahead through who they know.

Word stats

Known in English
Business people and China watchers know it. If you have heard it, you may also own a book about doing business in Shanghai.
Said in China today
关系 is an everyday Chinese word, but it covers every kind of relation, not just useful connections.
Polite
Not rude in either language. In English, though, saying someone got ahead “through guanxi” can sound like a small accusation.
Freshness
Fewer people look it up than last year. It lives in business books, not in memes.

Spotted in the wild

Work chat · Monday, 9:40 am
  1. Priyathe shenzhen deal is moving again
  2. Youafter three months of silence? what changed
  3. Priyamark had dinner with the supplier’s old classmate. guanxi, apparently
  4. Youok so the secret to business is dinner. noted

What it means here: Guanxi here is the personal connection that got a stuck deal moving again.

Group chat · Chinese class
  1. Leoi knocked over my tutor’s tea today and she just smiled and said 没关系
  2. Youwait, isn’t that the guanxi word?
  3. Leoso she was telling me i have no connections?? harsh
  4. Analol no. it means “never mind.” you’re fine

What it means here: 没关系 méi guānxi means “it doesn’t matter, never mind”; here 关系 is just “relation,” not a network of contacts.

Comments under a business article
  1. Danaso this factory got its permit in two weeks when everyone else waited a year? that’s guanxi
  2. Tomor they just filled in the paperwork right. not every fast permit is a back door

What it means here: Dana uses guanxi to suggest the factory got help through connections; Tom thinks that is unfair.

How to use it

  • have (good) guanxi with someoneOur new partner has good guanxi with the local suppliers.
  • build / foster guanxiShe spent two years building guanxi before she signed a single contract.
  • a guanxi networkHis guanxi network goes back to his university days in Beijing.
  • through guanxiHe got the meeting through guanxi, not through the website form.

Don’t say it like this

  • Sounds offHe has a lot of guanxis in Shanghai.

    Say thisHe has a lot of guanxi in Shanghai.

    In English, guanxi is uncountable, like “luck” or “advice,” so it has no plural.

  • Sounds offMy guanxi with my sister is really good.

    Say thisI’m really close to my sister.

    English borrowed only the “useful connections” sense. In Chinese you could say 我们关系很好, but in English guanxi sounds like your sister is a business contact.

  • Sounds off“GWAN-zee” (x like in “xylophone”)

    Say this“GWAHN-shee” (x close to “sh”)

    In pinyin, the letter x stands for a sound close to English “sh.”

  • Sounds offIn China, everything runs on Guangxi.

    Say thisIn China, a lot of business runs on guanxi.

    Guangxi is a region in southern China. The extra “g” turns your connections into a place.

guanxi or not?

Is each of these guanxi? Pick an answer to find out.

  1. A sales manager has dinner with a supplier’s family for years. When parts run short, the supplier sends hers first.

  2. You get a job because you scored highest on an open test, and nobody at the company knew you.

  3. A friend’s uncle introduces you to the right official, and your stuck permit starts moving.

  4. You buy a sofa from an online shop you have never heard of.

The guanxi family

  • 人情 rénqíngA favor, and the social duty to return it.Guanxi is the network; 人情 is what keeps track of who owes whom a dinner.
  • 面子 miànzi“Face”: your social standing and how others see you.Good guanxi and good face often travel together. Losing one can cost you the other.
  • old boy networkAn informal network of people, often old schoolmates, who help each other get ahead.The English cousin of guanxi, usually with more school ties.

Where it came from

  1. 17th centuryThe Oxford English Dictionary dates the Chinese word guānxì to this time. It breaks the word down as guān “to involve” plus xì “to relate to” [1].
  2. 1979The OED’s earliest English example comes from the Washington Post of 19 December 1979, which describes a marriage as part of “the village web of relationships, what the Chinese call guanxi” [1].
  3. 2016The OED first publishes its entry for guanxi in March 2016, and it last revised the entry in July 2023 [1].
  4. TodayIn English, guanxi lives mostly in business and news writing about China. In Chinese, 关系 is still an everyday word for any kind of relation.

Guanxi in English vs. 关系 in Chinese

English borrowed only one small part of a very big Chinese word. In Chinese, 关系 is an ordinary word for every kind of relation. MDBG gives its meanings as “relation; relationship; connection,” the verb “to concern; to involve; to affect,” and finally “personal connections” [3]. It is on HSK 3, the list of words learners meet in their first years of Chinese.

PointEnglish guanxiChinese 关系
Main meaningUseful personal connections in ChinaAny relation or relationship
GrammarUncountable noun, also used before nouns (“a guanxi network”)A noun, and also a verb meaning “to concern, to affect”
FeelingNeutral, often with a hint of trading favorsNeutral and everyday
Where you meet itBusiness, news, travel and academic writing about ChinaEverywhere: family, school, science, dating

Here are a few everyday Chinese uses that have nothing to do with business:

  • 我们关系很好 wǒmen guānxi hěn hǎo: “we get along really well.”
  • 没关系 méi guānxi: “no relation,” which means “it doesn’t matter” or “never mind.” It is one of the first phrases learners hear.
  • 因果关系 yīnguǒ guānxi: “cause-and-effect relation,” used in science and logic.

Chinese also talks about connections in the English sense. A 关系网 guānxiwǎng is a “network of connections,” and 拉关系 lā guānxi (“pull guanxi”) means working to build useful connections.

Is guanxi just a polite word for corruption? No. English writers sometimes use it to suggest favor-trading or getting around the rules, but the Chinese word itself carries no blame. Chinese has a separate phrase for the shady version: 走后门 zǒu hòumén, “go through the back door.”

Oxford’s learner’s dictionary labels guanxi as South-East Asian English [2], but English writers anywhere use it when they write about China. Do not mix it up with Guangxi (广西), a region in southern China. The spelling is close, but the two words are unrelated.

Sources

  1. guanxi, n. meanings, etymology and moreOxford English Dictionary, first published March 2016; last modified July 2023
  2. guanxi noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notesOxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Oxford Learner's Dictionaries)
  3. Word dictionary - relationship - MDBG Chinese DictionaryMDBG

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