[thu2111]

But is there something specific to Chinese culture that he argued made them more corrupt? Because it seems to me like basically all poor countries are corrupt, that they tend to get less corrupt as they get richer (or rather, they get richer as they get less corrupt) and China in 1922 was very poor indeed.

[simonh]

Honestly it's very hard to tell. It's quite short. My wife is Chinese and I've spent a bit of time over there. It's hard for me to tell which aspects of cultural behaviour over there are a product of several generations of communist rule and which date back earlier. What I can say is the business environment over there is bare naked ruthless. It's always possible to make a deal, right up to the moment it isn't and then you're done. As for social order, the Chinese believe in the rule of authority, not law.