Chinese multiplication is a method for multiplying multi-digit numbers by drawing a grid and lattice to place the digits, then multiplying the digits in pairs and adding them along the diagonals to get partial products, and finally adding all the partial products to get the total product. The document provides an example of using Chinese multiplication to solve 46 × 37, showing each step of drawing the grid, placing the digits, multiplying in pairs, adding along diagonals, and obtaining the final answer of 1702.