[seanmcdirmid]

It’s not binary! China is more corrupt than western countries, even if the west stil has corruption. The west has frequent reports about corruption because the media is separate from the government as well as separation of power, nothing can be papered over even if Donald Trump wants to silence it. In china, only corruption is reported on from official direction, the press can’t act independently.

There are plenty of countries that are more corrupt than China (e.g. India and Russia, as well as most of Africa). Again, it’s not binary!

[TeMPOraL]

Of course it's not binary. What I'm suggesting is that differences in corruption may be small between all those countries (note that we can't just count everything that China does that's undemocratic as corruption, because China is not a democracy).

[seanmcdirmid]

China simply doesn’t have very strong rule of law, so the notion of illegal isn’t meaningful. What is deemed corruption is up to official discretion, and so you’ll be “made an example” if you step out of line; likewise, if you are too clean, you won’t get promoted because you can’t be controlled like this. There is no independent judicial system, no separation of power to carry out independent prosecutions, no independent media to do investigative reporting independently to cause public outrage (and when they do by accident, the punishments are severe). You are either safe or you aren’t as china has basically rejected rule of law (and constitutional law) as a western imperialistic concept.

This has nothing to do with democracy. Singapore is relatively undemocratic (opposition parties are slapped with libel suits on a regular basis) but lacks significant corruption as they have very strong rule of law (the Lees are benevolent tyrants).

Saying corruption in china is similar to corruption in the states is like saying their air pollution is similar.