For decades, companies have poured into China to take advantage of the country’s manufacturing prowess and to serve its enormous market. While firms were largely aware of potential business risks, like intellectual property theft and the need to navigate corruption, executives have been less concerned about risks to their firms’ ethics and reputation. But in recent years the situation has changed dramatically, and companies such as Google, Disney, and the NBA have to steer through a much more perilous, and in some cases impassable, ethical landscape.
There are two factors that are driving this changing context. First, instead of becoming more democratic as the country grew richer, the Chinese party-state has grown increasingly repressive. And second, instead of becoming a responsible member of the liberal international order, China is increasingly seen as a threat to it — and to U.S. interests in particular.
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