Business Ethics in China

China is a country with a long history of ethics and moral governance, but its history of business ethics is akin to a short story. In China, the rise of business ethics, as scholarly pursuit, occurs later than its emergence in most Western developed countries, but the later emergence does not mean that the narrative of China’s business ethics is without content or interest. With the rapid increase of China’s international economic position, there are many indications that business ethics is now developing rapidly in China. Although business ethics arrived late to China, the ethical concerns are deeply-rooted in the traditional morals of the Chinese people. In this way, the advent of business ethics is not new even as the application of ethical ideas to a market economy seems new. Even the classic Chinese thinkers—Kongzi and Mengzi—had something to say about responsibility and wealth, though their legacy shall not be a central feature of this chapter.