Although I'm learing Mandarin, I'll place myself in the non-speaker slot. Over the past two weeks I've taken 20-30 taxi rides here in Beijing. In all of those situations I have not had one negative experience. My personal trick is that I carry a large map of Beijing folded in my back pocket. The map has characters and pinyin/english for each destination. It's only been over the last few days that I've reached to point where I no longer have to point to my apartment of school on a map, however map pointing worked just fine with all of my taxis.

Also, having a non-metered taxi/van/sedan drive you around isn't bad at all. If you're at the hotel they'll often refer you to a reputable driver. But last night we had a group of 6, and there was a guy that had a nice 7 pax van. I just told him where we were going and asked how much - it was less than two taxis would have cost. You never know, just ask.