Working with a Chinese vendors is an adversarial first relationship, where 差不多 is deeeeep in the culture (and, from my experience, tends to survive trips across the ocean).
There are professional communication/training courses for working with Chinese vendors/colleagues that spell all of this out, because it's not some secret. It's just a very different culture, with high context communication (I'll let you read what the practical implications of that are elsewhere). Want to have your mind blown? Look up what it means when they say "yes", when you're explaining something.
Being a low context person, I have significant and severe communication problems when working with Chinese colleagues/vendors.
There are professional communication/training courses for working with Chinese vendors/colleagues that spell all of this out, because it's not some secret. It's just a very different culture, with high context communication (I'll let you read what the practical implications of that are elsewhere). Want to have your mind blown? Look up what it means when they say "yes", when you're explaining something.
Being a low context person, I have significant and severe communication problems when working with Chinese colleagues/vendors.