THE Thais call it gin muong (nation eating). In Chinese, it is known as tan wu (greedy impurity), in Japanese oshoku (dirty job), and to the Pakistanis, it is ooper ki admani (income from above). Every Oriental language has its own phrase for corruption—and in every tongue the words are unpleasantly familiar. All around the rim of mainland China, many Asian nations are making notable progress, but the greatest obstacle remains the furtive hand in the till, the kickback artist, the bagman, the specialist in "squeeze." Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, who has more than his share of corruption to bog him down at home, is convinced that "we must change a whole way of life. We must do it or fail to survive."
Chiseling is a part of the Asian ambiance, from the ramshackle capital of lazy little Laos to the broad boulevards of booming Bangkok and the expense-account nightclubs of prosperous Japan. Even rigid Communist disciplinarians have failed to suppress the fast-buck artist: from Red China come tales of profiteering in the communes; refugees report that shady officials do a brisk business in exit permits; and the government is constantly renewing its "Four Cleans" anticorruption campaign. As for North Viet Nam, Hanoi recently headlined a Politburo official's complaint that party members were indulging in "dubious financial situations" and "incorrect borrowing."
That could mean anything, for as any Asian can testify, the technique of the take has infinite varieties. A stranger at the airport in Vientiane should not be startled if the customs official politely demands a 100-kip "deposit" for the transistor radio in his baggage. In the Philippines, some of the busiest businessmen are the "commuters," people who travel back and forth between Manila and Hong Kong counting on bribed customs officials to let them return with luggage loaded with wristwatches, diamonds or electronic equipment. An applicant for a government contract in New Delhi may find his documents interminably lost between offices unless he helps them along with "speed money" for well-placed civil servants. In Indonesia, soldiers stop autos at gunpoint to extort fees from travelers, wander into shops to demand goods for nothing. In Thailand, the wise businessman bidding on a government contract might end his visit to a government official by letting a well-filled wallet slip to the floor and exclaiming: "Why, you've dropped your wallet with 50,000 bahts [$2,400] in it!" One foreign contractor who did just that was dumfounded when the Thai official calmly replied, "Oh, no, I dropped my wallet with 150,000 bahts in it."
Be Not Concerned
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