International business ethics is an applied ethics that has formed under the background of economic globalization and applies to businesses of different countries. Economic globalization does not only require the agreement of all countries on the relevant legal issues to be established in legal forms so as to deal well with the conflicts and problems in international businesses, but also ask for the shaping of a universal business ethics to guide and regulate the conduct of business in different countries. International business ethics does not only focus on regulating the conduct of business between countries, but also bases the activities of every country on an ethics commonly recognized by all countries.

The contemporary German scholar Hans Küng points out that mankind cannot survive without world ethics; that mankind needs some norms, values, ideals and targets that are mutually related and restrained. On the basis of common needs, all mankind comes together in the common efforts to seek the norms, values, ideals and targets mentioned by Han Küng, trying to realize its common progress. The efforts in pursuit of global ethics have nothing to do with the imposition of the Western value onto the East, as someone says, or vice versa. It is the common ethical need of the whole mankind, not depending on the West or the East. International business ethics is the one that bases itself on the global ethics to regulate the businesses of various countries. Though businesses are different in different countries, with their own advantages and problems, yet it is difficult to imagine that there would be a kind of business ethics in the context of economic globalization that could only regulate the businesses of this country but not that one.

However, the issues of cultural relativism are an objective existence that cannot be ignored. The cultural differences of different countries cause definitely those in the way of thinking, senses and ideas, and customs and habits. But international business ethics does not demand to strive sedulously for the same, but only seeks the relative agreement on the fundamental orientation. When dealing with some specific businesses, it will take different ways based on the particulars in different countries and cases. At the same time, it will focus differently when facing a series of problems. But no matter how different the ways and foci are, the basic principles will not change. For example, both Christian and Confucian ethics consider ethics as prior to business, that is, when not involving ethical issues, you can give a full play to business, but when it touches on the ethical issues, you must scrupulously keep to the basic ethical principles. Of course, business ethics are not always encountering the alternative between business and ethics. It makes more efforts in pushing forward the better combination of the two and broadening the thought to seek for more opportunities of development and realize a win-win.

Recently Confucianism has been attached importance to again in China and countries all over the world. The role played and being played by Confucianism in Chinese culture and economic and ethical life cannot be overestimated. The Confucian concern for humanity, for dealing well with the relationship between the self and the other, is in accordance with the basic value orientation of the countries all over the world on these issues. The Confucian ideas about the great harmony under the heaven and the unity of righteousness and profit, and the considerations about dealing well with the relationship between the self and the other with different identities and positions, approach, on the basis of the general ethics, the fundamental theories of applied ethics and international business ethics further and are able to provide their practical application in China some more culturally based insights, both epistemological and methodological.