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In 2025, the anti-fraud and anti-bribery efforts of Chinese enterprises entered a critical phase characterised by “upgraded proactive governance and deepened full-chain prevention and control”. Driven by the dual forces of stringent regulatory oversight and market pressure, various market entities including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), private enterprises and internet platforms accelerated the construction of anti-fraud systems.

They implemented targeted measures focusing on high-risk areas such as supply chains, procurement and capital operations. Inter-enterprise joint punishment mechanisms gradually took shape, leading to a marked improvement in the level of corporate integrity and compliance.

China governance and prevention: Anti-fraud strategies

In 2025, amid tightened regulation, improved legislation and growing capital market focus on ESG (environmental, social and governance), corporate anti-corruption evolved from a mere internal control issue to a core credibility matter critical to business survival and development.

Anti-fraud efforts entered a new phase of systematic governance and precision prevention: law enforcement expanded to more private enterprises and supply chain terminals, with individual accountability and judicial referrals becoming standard practice; governance extended beyond traditional procurement and sales to cover R&D, traffic operations, capital transactions and overseas businesses; and system building shifted from post-event audits to a “system + technology” dual-driven model for proactive prevention, striving to establish a long-term mechanism to “deter, restrict and eliminate corruption”.

Targeted governance in China sectors: Supply chains, pharma

In 2025, anti-fraud and anti-bribery efforts focused on power-concentrated and capital-intensive core business links, with industry-specific targeted governance delivering tangible results.

Supply chain and procurement: Core of private enterprise anti-corruption. Enterprises in manufacturing, retail and other sectors cracked down on procurement rent-seeking and supplier commercial bribery, implementing full-chain controls through supplier integrity regulations and blacklists. For example, an athletic apparel and footwear group investigated 45 fraudulent suppliers and partners found to be violating integrity clauses and released its first list of 10 entities with which it would never co-operate.

Large manufacturers enforced mandatory rotation and conflict-of-interest declaration systems for high-risk roles such as procurement and quality control, breaking long-standing collusive interest transfer chains through procedural improvements. This indicates that private-sector anti-corruption is advancing from internal investigations to collaborative governance of the supply chain ecosystem.

Internet industry: Focus on anti-corruption in traffic and capital operations. To address rent-seeking risks in traffic competition, advertising placement and capital operations, leading internet platforms enhanced their digital auditing and intelligent risk-control capabilities.

Typical cases demonstrated that corruption in internet enterprises not only erodes profits but also triggers capital market shocks – one leading internet platform saw its market value drop by USD2 billion in a single day due to a corruption scandal, highlighting the critical role of compliance in maintaining capital market confidence.

Financial sector: New challenges in anti-money laundering. As digital finance advanced, money laundering methods became increasingly intelligent and concealed, posing significant challenges to anti-money laundering efforts. Meanwhile, regulation was further tightened: following the implementation of the new Anti-Money Laundering Law on 1 January 2025, supporting measures were rolled out sequentially, further consolidating the primary responsibility of financial institutions.

Pharmaceutical sector: Sustained high pressure on anti-commercial bribery. Against the backdrop of ongoing in-depth anti-corruption drives, law enforcement against commercial bribery in the pharmaceutical sector remained frequent and targeted in 2025.

The sector’s anti-corruption efforts featured two key traits: first, penetrating supervision, extending from traditional sales links to the entire chain, including R&D co-operation, clinical trials and academic promotion; and second, the simultaneous investigation of both bribery and acceptance of bribes, with harsher penalties imposed on bribing pharmaceutical enterprises and their agents – including product delisting from bidding platforms and inclusion in untrustworthy lists – significantly raising the cost of non-compliance.

SOEs: In-depth governance of ‘profiteering from the enterprise’. Efforts targeted SOE executives and key positions, rigorously investigating related-party transactions and interest transfers. Governance in 2025 emphasised thorough investigations, loss recovery and long-term deterrence.

For instance, Yuan, a former deputy general manager of a Chinese petroleum company, was prosecuted for accepting bribes by leveraging his former positional influence even after retirement, reaffirming that “retirement is not a safe haven”. Discipline inspection and supervision authorities at all levels pushed SOEs to integrate anti-corruption requirements into key processes such as investment decision-making, property rights transactions and material procurement, aiming to eradicate the root causes of corruption.

AI and technology empowerment: China anti-fraud measures

Technology played a contradictory role in the 2025 anti-fraud landscape: while driving the upgrading of fraud methods, it also served as the core driver of risk-control system development.

AI fuels fraud evolution. Fraudsters increasingly used generative AI to create indistinguishable fake invoices, contracts and audit reports; employed deepfake technology to mimic executives’ voices or images for fraudulent fund transfer approvals; and leveraged AI to generate massive volumes of “normal” behavioural data to cover up abnormal transaction trails.

AI boosts risk control. Leading enterprises responded by using technology to combat technology, building intelligent risk monitoring models. By applying machine learning and graph computing to construct dynamic knowledge graphs, they could automatically identify hidden fraud networks, such as related-party transactions and bid rigging, greatly enhancing the accuracy and timeliness of risk early warnings. A key enterprise utilised generative AI to achieve real-time monitoring of abnormal transaction patterns, effectively improving the efficiency of corruption risk detection.

China’s global anti-fraud and anti-bribery co-operation

With the deepening globalisation of Chinese enterprises and the convergence of international regulatory environments, anti-fraud and anti-bribery challenges and countermeasures for Chinese enterprises exhibited distinct “internationalisation” traits in 2025, making international co-operation imperative.

Alignment with international compliance standards. To meet the expectations of international customers, investors and capital markets, a growing number of Chinese enterprises “going global” have adopted internationally recognised compliance standards and undergone audits by international institutions. This requires enterprises to elevate their anti-corruption policies, processes, training and cultural building to world-class standards.

Addressing global fraud risks. To tackle cross-border interest transfers and money laundering via offshore companies, virtual currencies and complex trade structures, leading Chinese enterprises have joined international anti-fraud organisations, shared information on high-risk third parties and learned best practices from global peers, serving as key approaches to enhancing global risk-control capabilities.

Regularisation of cross-border investigations and law enforcement co-operation. Fraud investigations involving overseas branches or suppliers of Chinese enterprises often span multiple jurisdictions. Enterprises need to co-ordinate lawyers, accountants and investigation teams across countries, conduct compliant investigations in accordance with local data privacy and labour laws and maintain necessary communication with local law enforcement agencies. Bilateral co-operation mechanisms between China and some countries in anti-corruption law enforcement have also played an increasingly prominent role.

Conclusion

2025 marked a pivotal year for the maturation of anti-fraud and anti-bribery efforts among Chinese enterprises. They have evolved from a campaign-style crackdown to a governance philosophy embedded in corporate DNA, relying not only on institutional constraints but also on technological empowerment. They address immediate risks while building a future-oriented “immune system”.

For all market participants, proactively embracing this transformation and internalising compliance as a core development driver is the surest path to steady progress in an era of uncertainty.