I have a lot of colleague/co-workers who work in China or have worked in China. And I am also taking a class on Chinese culture and business etiquette, while I work very closely with my Chinese engineering teams. (Late evening meetings after working all day is a frustrating thing.)
Its a strange & interesting combination of fascism and capitalism. One can hardly call any of it communist any more. But the vestiges of an extremely powerful central gov't, bureaucracy, corruption, and secret police are still in full force. But with the acceptance of capitalist economies, all thats left is an oppressive fascist state. They no longer take care of the poor like they used to, they no longer care for the sick or old. These are some of the few positive fundamentals of a socialist/communist system that they no longer take responsibility for.
So its a little wild. One of the glues that hold this crazy system together is east Asian culture of "fitting in". In the west, we always glorify the individual. We honor great inventors, or great leaders; we always says it is good to be different or weird. But in easy Asia, like China and Japan, conformity rules. No accepts praise, all praise must be for the team. No one wants to be different, its very important to conform and fit in.
