Corruption is a structural pathology of public administration that destroys public trust in government institutions. In the context of globalization and digitalization, combating it requires not only institutional reforms, but also a profound restructuring of the ethical grounds of public service. Russia and China, two major countries with different political systems, have chosen fundamentally different paths to integrating ethics into anti-corruption architecture. A comparative analysis of these models allows us to identify universal patterns and culturally determined features of the formation of honest public service.