China gives aid, with a catch.

An article in the New York times struck some interest, “ China spreads aid in Africa, with a catch for recipients.” I felt it’s an interesting topic regarding business ethics. China has become a major super power in recent years with very wealthy companies, so the thought of providing foreign aid would be a pretty ethical move from an international standpoint, but their seems to be things hidden behind the curtain. China provided a low interest loan to Namibia in which they bought 55.3 million dollars worth of Chinese made scanners used to deter smugglers. China believed doing good in Namibia would benefit China as well. However now, “Namibia has charged the state controlled company selected by China to provide the scanners that they had facilitated the deal with millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks. And until China threw up barriers when Namibian investigators asked for help looking into the matter. Now the scanners seem to illustrate something else: the aura of boosterism, secrecy, and back room deals that has clouded China’s use of tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to court the developing world”( Sharon Lafraniere and John Grobler). It seems all over Asia and the middle east China is using foreign currency savings to tie alliances, gain access to foreign natural resources, and gain even more wealth for its leading companies.
Technically, China and it’s companies are obeying the law, but it doesn’t seem ethical. Although they’re gaining high profits, it’s at other country’s expense, which of many desperately need financial aid. As noted in Chapter 2 of our text book “ ethical compliance is the extent to which the members of the organization follow basic ethical (and legal) standards of behavior” (Fundamental of Management, Ricky W. Griffin, p. 44). Does China really uphold this? And there really isn’t anyone to defend, or “whistle blow,” because of their superiority.
Authors Sharon Lafraniere and John Grobler illustrate clear points from both sides of the issue, however, and quite obviously they favor Namibia and the outlying countries. Lafraniere and Grobler seem to not solidly point the finger at president Hu Jintao, but rather the large companies and corporations that are providing all these “goods and services.”