I've heard from a law student in China that the law is a tool to control the masses. Assuming that is true, ignoring the law is simply taking things under control and bribery is the cost of doing business.
Because in most western nations the government itself is bound by laws. There’s a huge philosophical difference between the way Chinese view law and we do.
It's not - we're mostly better than China but the crimes our governments commit against us are of the same type.
They steal our freedom and profits via taxes.
Taxes in China are not even that high for european standard, but they do infringe more on their citizens liberty.
On the other side, western societies are doing more of that too, between covid, gdpr, and the incoming cyber resiliance act
If you agree with "ignorantia juris non excusat" then student from China is right. Our governments adds tons of new laws every year and only few remove. We have about 2 millions laws, rules and regulations (Czechia). And we still believe that we live in free society.
How is that different to other countries? In the UK, for example, the Tory party have been enacting laws to make it difficult to legally protest.