> Corruption is, of course, universal.

So is crime. But it's all about prevalence.

And not just because corruption has some "indirect taxation" effect, but also because low corruption/trust is a big enabler for a society.

You are never gonna get rid of clannish mentality, vigilantism, nepotism and other undesirable behavior if your citizens don't have any trust in the system.

If you just look at e.g.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Corruptio...

you will see that the spread is very wide, and China/India is significantly behind most western nations.