Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got trouble in Shenzhen—the police have detained our senior sales manager. No corporate counsel wants to receive such a call. For U.S. companies conducting business in China, however, conversations like this have become increasingly common. Not so long ago, bribery was accepted by many as business as usual in China, essential to building your guanxi, that all-important network of business connections. Today, the Chinese government is trying to combat this culture of patronage and payoffs. Since becoming President and General Secretary of the Communist Party in 2012, Xi Jinping has made fighting corruption—both in the government and in commerce—a national priority.

As recent events demonstrate, a foreign passport will not deter Chinese authorities in their fight against corruption. In May 2014, for instance, China publicly accused the former head of a global pharmaceutical company’s China operations of overseeing a “massive bribery network,” and brought charges against the former head and the company. After a one-day trial in September 2014, a Chinese court found the company guilty of bribery and ordered it to pay nearly $500 million in fines. The former head was sentenced to three years prison with four years reprieve, meaning he will be deported rather than serving jail time.

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