Fili’s world
A different look at Asia, China and Taiwan
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A few weeks ago I went to visit Taichung, and saw a few cool spots. Visiting [...]
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Taiwan
Touring Taichung : Big Laughing Buddha, Art Street and Jing Ming Apartment Hunting in Tainan revisited Taiwan’s English Blogosphere - Introducing Expat Bloggers to local Taiwanese Best Taiwan blog awards – Voting now open on TaiwanderfulChina
The Chinese Israel bashing in response to China bashing on Israeli media Rare stamp : China’s “The entire nation is red” but Taiwan is white Israel at the Beijing Olympics : What do the Chinese think of Jews? Our medallists : Taiwan’s Chen Wei-ling and Israel’s Shahar Zubari
In "How to succeed doing business in China " I discussed the possible western stereotype and misunderstanding about GuanXi and giving the Chinese gifts. If a formal article in an Israeli newspaper about doing business in China advises that you should give gifts on a personal basis and should not take "no" for an answer, what does that mean?
It just so happens that that Transparency International have released their Bribe Payers Index annual report for the year 2006.
The Asian rankings are as follows (from best to worst) :
- Cluster 1 - Japan (out of 11 countries in cluster)
- Cluster 2 - Singapore (out of 6)
- Cluster 3 - Hong-Kong, South Korea, Malaysia (& Israel - out of 8 )
- Cluster 4 - Taiwan, China, India (out of 5)
A short Asian related comment from the report :
In contrast, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan performed substantially worse in the BPI 2006 than in the CPI 2005. This can lead one to conclude that companies from these countries are more likely to bribe when they operate overseas than would be accepted back home. This apparent tendency for companies to let standards slip when working in countries with less stringent regulations than their home countries is alarming, and underlines the need for governments to take responsibility for the way their companies do business abroad as well as at home.
The question posed in this research was :
‘In your experience, to what extent do firms from the countries you have selected make undocumented extra payments or bribes?'
For both Taiwan, China and Israel this report is quite relevant to recent happenings as leaders of these countries are faced with criticism regarding possible bribery related scandals. President Chen is in trouble because of various affairs, like the Sogo story with his wife. China has recently done the unimaginable with firing Shanghai's top due to a pension scandal. Prime minister Olmert is being investigated regarding some flats that he owned and sold around Jerusalem.
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Other world comparisons :