ASIAN, AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL GREASE

摘要

In 1977, after two months in Southeast Asia, I wrote concerning "Asian grease" - the kickbacks, commissions and other forms of bribery and extortion that were a way of life in places like the Philippines and Indonesia. A few years later, when on a reporting circuit in Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, influence peddling was found on only a somewhat lesser scale. In the Far Eastern countries, the "commissions" were also referred to as "tea money," not because the amounts were small but because the negotiations were often delicate as to the administration of the kickbacks.