Mr_Mikhailovich

Sounds like a great, bizarre, WTF? moment.

It's illegal in most states in the U.S. as far as I'm aware actually and regardless would likely have been something that could have been contested and found illegal even there - but that takes both time, resources, and the knowledge of how to work the system legally on OP's family's part. The first two are hard enough to fathom that they could have possibly had, for most Americans the third is a minority of people.

You're saying it wrong!

I'm incredibly late to this but I want to remind you that many, many, companies refrain from profit for moral reasons.

There's a few general reasons this refrain generally doesn't happen when you think people of at least average kindness and intelligence are involved.

Structural complexity of a business. Compounding white-lies. Chances for "small" corruption up a chain of hundreds+ employees because it will potentially a) get them a raise in the future, b) social praise in the office, c) keep their boss from being upset/blatantly displeased, d) fear of job loss because... well, someone could do it better than they did truthfully, etc.

I don't know what to tell you, just don't lose your faith in people. I have multiple friends and associates who have encountered small unethical decisions and had to confront them in Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and everything in between... and I have friends who have never encountered it at all.

There's no reason to think capitalistic businesses are innately horrible, we're doing wonderful for the most part in the modern western world, almost as well as we can. There are a lot of issues, but corruption isn't the default.

I'm incredibly interested in Chinese culture and language, I'm currently learning Mandarin dialect. I'm also an international business major!

I'm incredibly reluctant to be the one doing any business in a company with China though. Is there anything you can say to reassure me about the horrible things Chinese companies have done? (Stealing U.S. factories blatantly, etc.)