The onus of proof

We were not surprised when US companies Control Components Inc. and Avery Dennison pleaded guilty to paying bribes in China. More often than not, that is the way business is done here.

Nor are we surprised to see the list of alleged bribe takers, be it the Ministry of Public Security's Transportation Management and Science Research Institute, Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corp. (China), Guohua Electric Power (China), China Petroleum Materials and Equipment Corp., PetroChina, Dongfang Electric Corporation (China), or China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Naming names is not the way things are usually done here.

What took many of us aback is that US companies might well be pleading to violations that have never ever occurred on our soil.