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I work in international maritime shipping and have dealt with many Chinese owners and charterers. The Chinese are basically aliens from a different planet. You tell them one thing, they understand another and they tell you something irrelevant. We had sold a ship from a Chinese owner to a Greek owner, the market started going up and the Chinese owner immediately tried to back out and delay the sale and then asked for another 250k and then tried to keep all of the stuff in the ships work shop including the oxygen/acetylene tanks which probably costed 5-10k. Another experience I had was chartering a Chinese owned ship to Koch industries. The market again started going up and they did everything to back out. And I get it, the charter was for a year and another 100$ in hire per day is 36k at the end of a year. But it's really unprofessional and unethical to do these things in my line of work.
But back to what I was saying. They're basically on a different planet, really unscrupulous and unethical. They have a different mentality and sense of morality, and I say that as someone who has a degree in psychology, I'm not just trying to bash an entire culture or be a jerk for no reason but from my experience (and I know you said the company is HK based) the Chinese are not the most ethical people to do "American minded business" where were a bit more honorable. I think in China they would say what's the problem with that lip, to them that's perfect fitment.
Luckily you're doing business with people in HK which is a cut above China. You should be able to find someone in HK that can help. Are there no 1 series members across the pond in that area?
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