China Law Blog

To me, the difficult part in FCPA is separating out instances of genuine corruption (regardless of culture) from the more grey area "corruption" (depending on cultural norms, it may or may not be corruption).

For example, my Chinese friend explained to me that they expect leisurely activities such as visiting amusement parks during their business trips (on company expense) because their compensation package is structured differently from Americans. They receive much less cash compensation when compared to Americans. But they receive other types of benefits to make up for the cash shortfall such as subsidized housing from their danwei or subsidized meals and for certain people, they work at a particular company because part of their compensation may be the opportunity to go abroad. They don't view it as "corruption" that they are given free trips and free tickets to amusement parks. If anything it's to solidify relationships and to solidify loyalty to company.

But I agree, these types of more murky compensation schemes do give more opportunities to genuine corruption. But again, after the great American financial meltdown, I no longer know who is more corrupt... humans are all the same (regardless whether they are Chinese or American), if there is a loophole they can exploit, they will.