It is often said that self-interest best moves commercial corporations. As such, the trend toward corporate responsibility is argued to be best developed not by laws, but by allowing businesses to sort it out for themselves, in reference to their market peers and their stakeholders.

It's a nice fuzzy ideal. If only it were true. China, on the other hand, quite the interventionist in relation to corporate affairs, has made some gains on the corporate responsibility front.

China is often considered behind the game on CR. Its companies, ever more globally active, are seen as environmentally irresponsible, tight-lipped and secretive, as well as ignorant and exploitative in relation to overseas investments. All this is true. But, all truth is a coin: it has two sides.

Take CR in the Western world. For all the gains made in company triple bottom line reporting and policymaking, not much bears the stern gaze of critical analysis.

In Britain, around 33 percent of corporations do not pay tax, for instance. That's theft from the public purse of around US$93 billion (HK$725.4 billion). Around US$11 trillion of global assets are held offshore, to limit or avoid taxation, and half of all world trade passes through tax havens

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