I was reading-up on some of my favorite China blogs and came across a post that asks a great big question about China.  Is Bribery necessary in China?  Here is the source: The Rise of The Dragon: Is Bribery Really Necessary?

So back to the question.  I think corruption is a terrible thing, but having dabbled in international business (who am I kidding, US too) I would say that it is very real.  I hate to say necessary, but yeah, In China it is.  Foreign firms can not own land in China, so if you own a factory their you HAVE taken part in China’s exciting world of corruption.  In order to get a permit to build, you need government permission.  To get permission, on some level someone was bribed or “greased” somehow.  It is literally impossible, and incredibly nieve to think other wise.  My info comes from a few friends and other third party sources, so I may be wrong, but I doubt it.  There are so many levels of beuracracy in China, to think that you can avoid the built-in corruption is again, nieve.

But isn’t bribery illegal?  Yes.  And didn’t they execute the health minister a couple years ago for accepting bribes?  Yes.  Good show huh.  China is good at that.  There are a lot of illegal things in China that you would think their GDP depends on.  Prostitution, child labor (at least us American’s ignorant definition of it,) and environmental pollution just to name a couple.  You see these everyday.  In fact, unless you hide in a fort made of blankets in your hotel room with the phone off the hook and the blinds closed, you can hardly avoid the above three.  Bribery is not quite that bad, but you get my point.

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