The Issue of Corruption in China: Current Situation, Causes, Consequences and Prevention

Corruption refers to dishonest acts or fraudulent activity that is conducted by those in power in a country. This includes people who are involved with or work in the government. A lot of the time corruption involves bribery.

What is the current situation with corruption in China?

Corruption in china presents business operating or planning to invest in the country with high risks. corruption continues to negatively influence the business environment. Companies are likely to experience bribery, political interference when acquiring public services and dealing with the judicial system.

China offers a comprehensive legal framework in the public and private sectors to criminalize several corrupt practices such as, money laundering, active and passive bribery, and gifts in the public and the private sector with the Anti-Unfair Competition Law focusing on commercial bribery. Anti-corruption laws are inconsistently and selectively enforced.

There are a number of sources and causes of corruption in china. These include:

1. Judicial System - The judiciary in China has high corruption risks for businesses. The Chinese Communist Party rejected the principle of separation of powers and does not provide for an independent judiciary Judges receive guidance from the government and the ruling party regularly, particularly when it comes to politically sensitive cases. (HRR, 2015)
2. Police – Corruption in the Chinese police constitutes high risks for companies. Companies have reported that police services are very unreliable in protecting them from crime and also enforcing the law. Also two thirds of business reports paying for security in China (ES, 2012). Abuses of power among police officers were prosecuted very rarely.
3. Public Services – Corruption is a high risk for businesses when getting public services in China. Companies report the exchange of suspicious payments and bribes is widely spread and consider government regulations to be difficult and also inefficient. Many Surveys show that more than a third of companies report having to pay bribes to public service sector (Charney Research, Jan. 2015).

What are the consequences of corruption in China?

Corruption has lead to a number of consequences in china, this mainly includes the high risk for companies and businesses as they are paying bribes to public services and other services in the country.

One way of taking action against corruption is to change the government processes. If the members of the governing body are government officials, there will most likely be less reports of the criminal cases. The reverse may be possible only when there are no more criminal politicians in our government.