How not to lose your shirt in China

Each time I write something about human rights in China, as I did recently in The Spectator, I receive e-mails from men, always men, doing business in China whose message is this: China is becoming a world-class economic power with its own moral standards, so why don’t I shut up and praise it for its tremendous accomplishments?

Now comes James McGregor with this simple message: ‘The sad fact is that the Chinese system today is almost incompatible with honesty — almost everybody is at least a little bit dirty.’ And since McGregor’s book is a guide to doing business in China, here is some of his advice: ‘Once you get below the level of the big multinationals doing large deals, China becomes a swamp.’ American companies, he notes, are ‘forbidden from engaging in any form of bribery by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.’ So,