Guanxi in the Chinese Web

Guanxi is a type of dyadic social interaction based on feelings, trust, and the development of friendship. In this paper, we define the concept of guanxi as it is applied to the interaction between web sites. We show by analyzing the local linking structure between Chinese web sites and the content of Chinese web documents that interaction between Chinese web sites can be seen to exhibit two types of guanxi: strong guanxi and cheap guanxi. We compare the local linking structure of Chinese web sites to the local linking structure of web sites in the general web and in Japan, Iran, and France. Finally, we explore methods to identify types of guanxi in the Chinese web, and give a method for simulating guanxi in a web graph model.