Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt Than China? (Update)

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode we first published in 2021, the political scientist Yuen Yuen Ang argues that different forms of government create different styles of corruption — and that the U.S. and China have more in common than we’d like to admit.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. On last week's episode, I interviewed Dan Wong, an author and close observer of China, about his new book, Breakneck, China's Quest to Engineer the Future. That conversation reminded me of another good conversation we had about China a few years back with the political scientist
0:21.1	you and you and Aung. So I thought it might be worth revisiting that episode. It is called,
0:26.0	Is the U.S. really less corrupt than China? We have updated whatever facts or figures needed
0:32.9	updating. Once you're finished, let us know what you think. Our email is radio at freakonomics.com. As always, thanks for listening.
0:44.2	The best way to understand China's political system is that it is a corrupt meritocracy.
0:50.8	If I were to ask you to point to another corrupt meritocracy, maybe it's even one where you and I are
0:57.9	both located at the moment. What would you say? I think it's more complicated in this country.
1:04.7	Corruption in China is still of an illegal form. But corruption in this country has become so legalized and institutionalized.
1:13.6	It's hard to say that it's corrupt. Some people would be really offended by the word.
1:22.5	U and U and Aung is a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. In 2020, she published a book
1:28.9	called China's Gilded Age, the paradox of economic boom and vast corruption. Her analysis is
1:36.0	based on prosecutorial data, government compensation figures, news reports, and her own interviews
1:41.8	with more than 400 Chinese bureaucrats.
1:45.2	She's trying to answer several questions about corruption.
1:48.2	The main one is this.
1:49.7	How has an economy like China's been able to grow so large and so fast with such high levels of corruption?
1:57.6	Economists usually point to corruption as an impediment to economic growth, and corruption
2:02.8	in China is famously high, at least according to rankings like the one from Transparency International,
2:09.1	a German association that collects corruption data around the world. Some scholars argue that
2:14.0	corruption poses an existential threat to China, and President Xi Jinping seems to agree.
2:20.6	Since he took over in 2012, he has led a crackdown in which more than 5 million government
2:26.1	officials have been disciplined with thousands sent to prison.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.