Corporate Social Responsibility from the Chinese Perspective

In recent years, several serious incidents causing numerous deaths have garnered special attention from the Chinese Central Government. Coal mines are dangerous in China, and accidents frequently occur throughout the provinces. These accidents, which have resulted in thousands of deaths, have been due to the neglect of safety standards by coal mine owners in favor of economic profit.' Moreover, in September 2008, several large milk and formula companies in China were involved in a notorious product quality scandal known as the "Milk Powder Scandal" or "Infant Formula Scandal." Over 1,200 infants were sickened, hospitalized, and some even died, after being fed formula contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical that can cause kidney stones and other complications in infants.2 Major newspapers in China have also frequently reported social problems such as physical abuse of workers, dangerous working conditions, unfair wages, product quality scandals, and industrial pollution. All of these problems involve a fairly new issue in China: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It would be inaccurate to say that CSR is a completely new issue in China because the Chinese government has been committed to the improvement of CSR for decades.3 The Chinese government seeks to substantially increase social wealth to satisfy social needs; it takes measures to foster job growth; it strives to promote social welfare; and it tries to control pollution to guarantee a better environment. All such efforts are carried out for the sake of corporate development.' Nevertheless, the term CSR is fairly new in China. The numerous CSR-related laws in China indicate that the government highly values CSR in most aspects of its