After Enron, an energy firm, collapsed in a flurry of fraud, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002 which, among other things, protected whistle-blowers from retaliation.
The provisions include state protection for whistle-blowers, as well as rewards for bringing legitimate cases - a strong incentive in an increasingly litigious society such as China's.
Even after a disgruntled senior executive posted some rum-sounding details to Wikileaks, a website specialising in information provided by whistle-blowers, they would have remained obscure.