After four decades of a political standoff, the recent thaw in Sino-Indian relations has seen a renewal of dialogue and the start of substantive negotiations between the two countries. But negotiating with the Chinese – the inscrutable Orientals, as the Europeans called them – requires a very different set of sensitivities and skills to what we Indians are accustomed. Our negotiating skills have largely been limited to Americans, Europeans and West Asians who are distinctly more transparent, open and non-contextual in their negotiations than the Chinese or the traditional Japanese.