NY Times article on rampant cheating in China

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?pagewanted=all

Excerpt:

"....dishonest practices that permeate society, including students who cheat on college entrance exams, scholars who promote fake or unoriginal research, and dairy companies that sell poisoned milk to infants."

 

Much of East Asia has a different cultural attitude toward what we regard as cheating; this attitude extends to copyright and intellectual property protections.

This goes back centuries, China - and some East Asian nations in its cultural orbit - have long used examinations to select personnel for its mandarinate. High-stakes college entrance exams are an evolution of this system; they literally determine - at age 17 - one's whole future prosperity and station in life. Given this, a higher level of cheating is inevitable.

Chinese Imperial Examination System
SpringerLink - Research in Higher Education, Volume 40, Number 3

The obvious exception is Singapore.