Abstract: At the crucial moment when China is accelerating its comprehensive national power in the fields like economy, finance, trade and so on, the international business negotiations have already been commonplace in many companies. Cultural differences, without doubt, play a vital role in these negotiations. Lack such kind of knowledge is more likely to lose some potential profit, even to result in cultural bias unconsciously. So, it is really of great importance to study how cultural differences between China and western countries can affect the development of business negotiations. By comparing Chinese and western cultures and negotiation styles during the business negotiations, the paper will mainly focus on five parts. The first part offers the basic knowledge of the international business negotiations. The second part generalizes the major cultural facts involved in the international business negotiations, such as values, means of language and communication, and thought patterns. The third part illustrates the practical impacts of cultural differences on the various aspects by citing several relative cases. Therefore, the forth part offers some relative and helpful suggestions and countermeasures, and the last part makes a conclusion and provides a far-sighted perspective into the future. In order to help negotiators have a more effective and win-win international business negotiations, on the basis of mutual respect, mutual understanding and sincere appreciation of cultural conflicts, this thesis will have a deep research on the impacts of Sino-western cultural differences on international business negotiations.

Key words: cultural differences; business negotiations; impacts; suggestions