How to Reduce Bribery in Chinese BusinessSince the implementation of the reforming and opening policy in 1978, Chinese businesses prospered successfully in a particularly short time with the help of socialist market economic system. However, as the economy booms prosperously, drawbacks have been revealed. One of the most significant drawbacks is the business corruption. Generally, for Chinese business, there exists a comprehensive framework in both the public and private sectors to classify corrupt practices, and facilitation payments, money laundering, active and passive bribery, and gifts are mostly belong to the typical business corruption. (GAN Integrity Solutions, 2015) This essay is going to focus on the solutions to solve the active and passive bribery for the consideration of three perspectives which were ranked by individuals, companies, and Chinese government.Bribery has negative influence on both internal business operation and external foreign investment. On the one hand, bribery rejects the companies’ healthy regulation. According to a research by Charney (2015), in order to operate, more than one third of the surveyed corporate had to pay bribes. This data was based on a survey of 2,300 firms across China with a range of industries. (Levick, 2015). On the other hand, according to Song’s new survey, 25% of the companies avoid doing business in China due to bribery. (2013) Despite Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, there is still a considerable amount of bribery exist in the country's business area. (Yang, 2015) The first solution is for the individuals in China, especially for the Chinese employees in public institutions or personal corporations. That is to form a correct conception of dealing with the relationship between self and colleagues from other hierarchies, especially for the competition relationship. There should form a common sense that ability is probably the most valid standard of promotion or awarding around all the workers within the Chinese business environment. To make it true, childhood education is the most useful and significant way. When deep and correct conception was formed in a child’s mind, be tainted with bribery might be difficult no matter what atmosphere the society is during his or her rest life.The main drawback of receiving correct and impressive education of dealing with bribery is the difficulties of eliminating Chinese conventional thinking in bribery. For individuals, China has a long history of giving gifts to express the gratitude to the person who has helped a lot before promotion or dealing with business difficulties for these individuals and this is even an acceptable custom in contemporary society too. Furthermore, the boundary between gratitude expression and bribery is quite difficult to authenticate. (Sufrin, 2013) As a result, eliminating the fundamental recognition of bribery in the bottom of Chinese minds is becoming tougher and more arduous. The second suitable solution is particularly for the public institutions and personal companies. That is establishing the rewarding mechanism which is base on the holistic management system to motivate the employees to reject the bribery. At the same time, high hierarchies’ managers should undertake more responsibilities and to be the positive example in the companies and the lower hierarchies’ employees. From the current point of view, because of the difficulties which exist in Chinese employees to overcome the bribery, the most valid way is probably to attract them by rewarding policy. Give the suitable bonus to the employees who have no briberies’ behaviors during a certain period could be regarded as a kind of motivation. Moreover, if the high-level managers lead the trend to overcome the bribery, most employees may have less hesitation to avoid bribery.Objectively, this solution may meet several obstacles, the cost of the awarding penalty and complicated relationship within the companies are two of them. If the penalty is quite considerable for the employees, most of the employees may avoid briberies strictly and they deserve to enjoy the bonus, in other words, maybe companies cannot afford the expenditure. However, if the penalty is not attractive enough, few employees would like to avoid briberies, the awarding system may be in vain. Except from that, different arguments about putting the anti-bribery policy into practice may appear around the High-level managers. Some of the managers agree to follow but others may not. Furthermore, the bribery in the Chinese economy may link to the political relationship. To be clearer, for the highest level managers, in order to maximum companies’ profit, it is quite tough to balance the relationship between their companies and officers from government. (Johnston, 2001). Finally, Chinese government is the most powerful role of anti-bribery in China and the deepest reason for so many briberies in Chinese business is that the existing legislations cannot regulate briberies in different varieties and varied degrees. Considering this kind of background, reinforce the power of the correspondent business legislations is the most pressing method. An example of this is, because the majority of the briberies are quite slight, regulate some slight briberies’ behaviors might be a valid method. Another influential element is high-level officers’ attitudes toward the business bribery in China. There is little doubt that Chinese chairman Xi Jinping has an extremely solid determination to eliminate the corruption in China. His ambition of chasing no corruption may motivate lower-level officers’ to fulfill the responsibilities of avoiding bribery.The biggest difficulty of the carrying out valid business legislations is the time consuming, and although high-level officers’ attitudes are uncompromising, they also need to consider various elements and conditions. Firstly, concentrating on the progress of producing a new business law, after bringing in a new bill, making the audition, passing it and publishing the new legislation. Finishing these steps needs from three years to a decade years so time consuming is the main obstacles of reinforcing the legislation to reduce the bribery. Secondly, sometimes Chinese government has to yield to some potential power. For some instances, it is quite tough to punish the key industrial business even if they had severe briberies’ behaviors because the whole country cannot operate smoothly without these huge industries. As a result, the only way to solve this condition is to reform and punish the bribery step by step. That makes eliminating bribery in Chinese business in a short time is nearly impossible.In conclusion, Facing with the severe bribery phenomenon in Chinese business, three solutions are possible to solve the bribery. Firstly, for Chinese individuals, forming a correct understanding about reasonable competition in a company to avoid bribery. At the same time, individuals also need to break conventional Chinese custom which may interfere in the formation of correct conception. In addition to that, as for Chinese companies, establishing awarding system for the employees who have no bribery in certain period to motivate the employees to refuse bribery with the leading of high-level managers. Finally, for the Chinese government, publishing more legislation to punish in particular the slight bribery and high-level officers should solidity the anti-bribery ambition and attitudes. However, for these two solutions, high cost and time consuming and complicated relationship between officers and managers, managers and managers, officers and officers may be the main obstacles of these two solutions. From above analysis, in terms of the short-term plan, corporate’ rewarding system and high-end managers’ leading as well as government’s officers’ anti-bribery attitudes may be more accessible. However, for a long-term plan, the first solution which focuses on eliminating conventional misunderstanding of bribery may be the most significant method. As the development of the Chinese economy, better solutions may appear, and most of Chinese will continue to observing the anti-bribery progress. |
References:

China Country Profile. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://www.business-anti-corruption.com/country-profiles/east-asia-the-pacific/china/snapshot.aspx

Johnston, M. (2001, July 23). Corruption in China: Old Ways, New Realities and a Troubled Future. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan024539.pdf

Levick, J. (2015, January 12). New Data: Bribery is often "An Unspoken Rule" in China. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://www.charneyresearch.com/

Sufrin, S. (2013, November 16). Graft: Grease for the Palm and Grease for the Wheels.Challenge, 30-33

Yang, S. (2015, January 23). If you’re Doing Business In China, Here's Where You'll Find Most Corruption. Retrieved December 13, 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/china-corruption-in-business-study-2015-1