Principle of Interest Distribution

　　The purpose of negotiation is to reach agreements between parties with different interests. Negotiation can take a variety of forms. While the traditional competitive approach to negotiation tries to maximize one party's gain over the other party's loss, the collaborative approach focuses on parties with diverse interests working together to achieve mutually satisfying outcomes. However, no matter what form a negotiation may take, its goal will never change: interest realization.

　　Any negotiations occurred at home involve two levels of interests: personal and organizational; at the international level, there are three: personal, organizational and national. To what extent these interests can be coordinated, integrated and balanced determines largely the progress and outcome of negotiations.

　　1. Personal interests vs. organizational interests

　　Personal interests may include such major aspects as realization of personal value, promotion to higher positions, increasing personal income and pursuing comfortable life. Comparatively speaking, personal interests can be easily brought into line with that of organizations since realization of one's personal value, social status and his reputation in others' expectation are linked closely with his performance and achievements done for the organizations. Therefore there is an interior connection between personal and organizational interests, so realization of organizational interests means fulfillment of personal interests and vice versa. By virtue of this linkage, negotiators will make his utmost efforts to achieve interests of organization he represents in the negotiation.

　　However, personal interests are not always in convergence with interests of organizations particularly when individuals place their own interests before interests of the organizations or when their own interests are in conflict with interests of the organizations, which are often of momentary nature.

　　2. Personal interests vs. organizational and national interests

　　Personal interests are found easier to be brought in line with interests of organizations by reason of close linkage between the two, but may be frequently in conflict with interests of the state. For individuals, national interests appear to be quite remote and directly connected with individuals' and thus they are often looked upon as a general guideline. However, when an individual represents his country in bi-national negotiations, he will definitely defend the interests ofthe country and make every effort to gain state interests, since on such occasion state interests are so overwhelmingly important that any suffering of state interests will bring heavy losses not only to the state but to organizations and individuals as well.

　　Organizational interests and national interests should be in convergence well coordinated, too, since national interests represent organizational interests fundamentally. When dealing with issues involving bilateral relations of two countries, organizations have to get the support from the government because bilateral or multilateral relations of countries are so complicated that they are beyond organization's abilities and authorities to manage. By requesting assistance from the government, organizations can still have strong influence on government's decision-making.

　　The government will give its full support for the realization of the interests at both the organizational and national level.

　　Organizations, on the other hand, paying undue attention to their own interests at the negotiating table, will undermine or jeopardize national interests. Such cases are not uncommon in recent years. For instance, some companies imported scrapped cars causing air pollution; some enterprises manufactured products such as disposable chopsticks for export at the expense of valuable national resources,National interests should always be of top priority. When there is a conflict between organizational interests and national interests, organizational interests must be subordinate to the national interests. In almost no exception government will give its full support to the realization of the common interests of both the nation and the organization.

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