Corruption is absolutely a problem. It is also a recognised, talked about, and actively fought problem at the highest levels, which is very different from the s

Corruption is absolutely a problem. It is also a recognised, talked about, and actively fought problem at the highest levels, which is very different from the situation in Russia. As well, China culturally has a lot more hope and nationalism than Russia does, and corruption has to hide a bit more from their very, very dedicated and hyper-nationalistic online citizenry, which by default lowers potential payouts from corruption (you can't just be like a Russian official and walk around with diamond encrusted watches no questions asked). China had a much worse corruption problem 15 years ago; it was so bad that it enabled massive CIA infiltration of their military and political apparatus, in a situation analogous to an American finding out that the Republican and Democrat party machines as well as several 3-star generals were on the Chinese payroll. The discovery of how significant CIA infiltration was in ~2010 was a huge shock to the system, and after they were finished catching and killing everyone involved they began the work of trying to root out corruption more seriously to destroy the incentive structure and culture that had allowed that CIA network to take root. It's still ongoing, but anecdotally it seems like they've been making significant success. There's a reasonably good YouTube video on the general topic of "Chinese military corruption" released recently by Perun, it's here: https://youtu.be/vhI_tTEE2ZQ?si=gtZ5YGWnV8q8TLcT https://youtu.be/vhI_tTEE2ZQ?si=gtZ5YGWnV8q8TLcT I have watched it, it is a generally good overview that doesn't get any major factual issues wrong. My only quibbles with it would be things like minor word choices, emphasis, etc.