If you have traveled you know that people, cultures and governments are not the same thing. I personally believe that most people and all cultures are inherently good.
I have visited china a several times, and with as everywhere I have been the people are friendly, and the culture is very different from mine. The people are a great people with a rich culture, the system oppresses them, and everyone there knows it. Most all would say they wished they could change it, and in China many are afraid to say anything at all.
To understand the fear, you really have to visit. For example; If you have a "private" Chinese internet connection in your home, and you Google "Free Tibet", your internet connection will shut down within minutes. A person doing this would rightly fear that this information will be recorded and used against them later should doing so become useful to the party. It is disturbing to a visitor, and frightening to someone that can't leave. Such practices are different in different parts of the country, what works in Shanghai might not work in the countryside.
With respect to the executions related to the Milk Adulteration fiasco, unlike a country where the "rule of law" is paramount and where the rich and powerful can be jailed, punishment by the government is more likely to fall upon a "fall guy" or an unpopular person with little "Guanxi" (simplified: Relationship Capital)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi, than upon a wealthy person, or a powerful party member or his friends and family.
I do not blame the Chinese people or their culture and feel it is unfair to characterize the issue as an issue of culture, it is simply an issue of incentives in a police state.
The "5 year plan (or current version)" says milk production will grow at 20% per year, and it would be dangerous for the poor slob running the factory not to produce more milk. The boss of a factory is there often because of many factors unrelated to education, capability, or character and often is chosen due to relationships, wealth and a complex interaction of factors that unfortunately do not often bring the best, brightest and most honorable person to the top. Was it stupid or dishonest? Was it evil or an unwise practical choice made by an uneducated person? He wanted protein to measure higher... did he know that it was a poison? We will never know, and open investigation will never occur.
Some factory head probably was punished (or his underling if the factory head was powerful), this is conjecture, the system is closed and we cannot know the truth. But there are many factories, and the punishment is simply to placate the masses. The other Milk factories can change with a new policy and stop doing the adulteration and hopefully have done so. The system is at fault, and there are powerful persons in the system that knew this was happening, and they were surely not punished.
I can't say that in a fair world they would be. In a fair world the system would change, and from my last visit I believe there is hope that it will. There appears to be a microeconomic boom going on. I got some sense of a feeling that a person can improve himself or his family through effort, and saw that many people now have some visibility ( due to internet and communication tech) to other ways of life and opportunities. I think China, in trying to create a middle class, may have let a genie out of the bottle.
In the Soviet Union it seems (I have not visited personally) that this lead to a robber baron phenomenon which has decreased in amplitude, and I hope for the sake of it's people it will stabilize to something better than the old Soviet Union.
In China the robber baron phenomenon has been "built in" for quite a while, so I think it will follow a different path, but any change is reason for hope.
I feel a country founded in revolution has the best chance of creating a better society for it's people (but I may be prejudging this as a US citizen). The US is such a country, I think Turkey is another example, younger with some problems. I have hope for Egypt too, although in these early days it is hard to see through the noise.
I am convinced that nation building from the outside doesn't work.
Sorry for the WAY off topic reply but yes, there are robber baron's in China selling counterfeit IC's and while some may see this as a problem of culture, I prefer to see it as the signs of a microeconomic boom that someday will lead to the freeing of her people.
Don't blame the culture it is all they have going for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius#Ethics
So Living Sounds... on behalf of the Chinese people thank you for contributing to the efforts for freedom :
