With over a billion people in the country, the highest levels of leadership can't easily stop the kind of corruption that most businesses are victimized by: Extortion by local officials. It's like, they walk in to your factory, claim your fire extinguishers are not regulation, and demand that you buy a dozen of them from their friend and no one else, and it's going to cost you 50,000 RMB ($7k USD). And if you don't go and get them, right now, then they're taking the keys to your factory, kicking out all the employees (who you will still have to pay) and not letting anyone back in until you do. And it has to be cash. And no, you're not getting a receipt.

Or it will be things like, you order something, it's not delivered even close to spec, and the corrupt police make you pay for it anyway or else. Contracts are utterly meaningless. And of course this only starts happening when you start making money. And they'll know you're making money because the locals around you are definitely ratting you out and quite possibly in on it.

You need to have the right friends to avoid this, and those kind of friends cost money.

Our systems aren't perfect, but it's rare we have to put up with shit like that.

Still, I like it here. The cost of living is reasonable, the weather is good, it's a big city with lots of entertainment, and a lot of people are here doing stuff. Being right next to Hong Kong is also a big plus. Biggest downside is how bad the internet sucks.