Brewed Fresh Daily

In 1990, during my first trip to China, the sense of being watched was still palpable. Part of the feeling arose, no doubt, from my assignment: to assist a U.S. company negotiate a supply agreement with a factory belonging to Norinco, the state-owned enterprise belonging to the military.

Fast forward ten years: 2000. Corruption became more of an issue in China as the party ties loosened, and markets started to take hold. In that year, we launched a joint venture producing mineral water in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province. (The location of the terra cotta warriors, if that helps.)

Our trucks were routinely stopped by local police investigating our licenses. We even had a local police gang take our employees hostage for a day or so demanding payments. (We dispatched that problem with a quick letter to the Mayor of Xi’an.)

Local representatives from the Health Ministry once demanded that we install entirely new air filtration equipment in our factory…and directed us to their preferred supplier. (We refused.)

But corruption continues to fester…and get worse. Our factory is located in Lantian County (one of the six surrounding counties of Xi’an). Now we are confronting the problem of a corrupt local judge (head of the criminal division of the local Peoples’ Court, no less) and a small gang of thugs run by a local former police chief.

We’ll confront this menace, like we have in the past: By persistently calling out the perpetrators and exposing the corruption.

In the end that’s all that any of us has…the power of exposure. As political control continues to loosen in China, corruption will get worse. The only counterforce emerging (and it is slow but steady) is the power of the Internet to expose corruption.

The same is true, I suppose, for the corruption in Cuyahoga County. Formal prosecutions help enormously. Stiff sentences provide a good deterrent.

But in the end, the real power held by citizens comes from relentless demands for transparency.

Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison

• Signing off - February 3rd, 2012
• "The current global development model is unsustainable" - February 1st, 2012
• Market opportunities for developing Chicago's green economy - January 29th, 2012
• Plain Dealer flubs its explanation for firing Tony Grossi - January 27th, 2012
• Linking and leveraging university assets to strengthen regional economies - January 27th, 2012

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