Canada Second Cleanest but China Still Very Corrupt: Trace Matrix Survey
The Western press routinely lambasts China for being corrupt and plagued with pervasive bribery risks for businesses, often suggesting that China’s political system is at fault and the transformation to electoral democracy as the panacea.
If you’re into rankings of ‘corruptness’, the Trace Matrix ranking of bribery risks in 197 countries across the globe (developed in collaboration with the Rand Corporation) that came out yesterday has Canada smelling pretty rosy, placing very high up in second with a score of 22, just behind world beater Ireland (score of 20). The lower the score, the cleaner the economy.
A cursory look at the ranking reveals a number of probable variables determining ‘corruptness’ versus ‘cleanness’ (this author’s assessment): 1) it seems to be correlated to a large extent with the level of economic development of countries; the more developed, the less corrupt; 2) corruptness tends to be more prevalent in countries with older civilizations that did not undergo democratic/capitalistic transformations on their own or were colonized such as China, India, Egypt to just name a few; and 3) with the exception of the Japan, Germany, and the US, the size of the economy and population matters with smaller, less complex but nonetheless sophisticated and therefore easier to manage countries tending to be ‘cleaner’. In this respect, Nordic countries seem to fair very well.
In terms of the Sinosphere, China placed very poorly on the index at 137th spot (score of 66) but Hong Kong SAR tied for 3rd with New Zealand and Sweden with a score of 23 and ethnic Chinese dominated Singapore tied for 7th with Japan (26). While Macao scored as bad as the mainland (perhaps due to the gaming industry and the legacy of underworld control), Taiwan was not surveyed. As for emerging market BRICs, China landed behind Russia (134th, score of 65) and ahead of Brazil (145th, score of 69) but way ahead of India (185th with a score of 80).
India is the West’s poster child for mass democracy and is often juxtaposed to China for its boisterous and chaotic politics as opposed to one-party authoritarianism. Yet, in various ratings of economic development, indicators of well-being, and corruption, India consistently falls way behind China. So, it seems that differences in political system exert little impact on results. It comes down to being mainly a function of economic development and market sophistication, competency of government at various levels, levels of transparency, and the government’s commitment to fighting corruption. The massive and successful anti-corruption campaign undertaken by President Xi Jinping’s forces is a case in point which is hardly possible in a polity such as India’s.
The ranking can be found at: http://www.traceinternational.org/trace-matrix/
Here’s a related G & M article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/canadian-businesses-among-least-corrupt-survey/article21532628/?cmpid=rss1
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