“slaughtering the chicken to warn the monkey” to keep other officials in line
Source:
http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=303&catid=8&subcatid=49
Crackdown on Corruption in China
There are periodic crackdowns on corruption, which are seen as ways of cleaning up corruption and sending a warning to others to clean up their act. On the numerous Chinese anti-graft campaigns in recent years, AP reported. “Some have seen judges and high-profile party figures sentenced to years in prison. Others have brought down some of China’s top corruption hunters, who were found to be lining their own pockets. One even saw the head of the country’s food and drug agency executed for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash.” Some Anti-corruption campaigns end up as purges aimed at eliminating political rivals and protecting friends and settle scores.
Former U.S. ambassador to China, James Lilley, told Time, "It's been said there are three options. Shoot the corrupt, let them go free, or. Their only option is the third."
Tens of thousands of low-level officials have been disciplined or punished in anti-corruption drives and their names have been made public. After a string of bank scandals bank employees were told they would be rewarded generously if they exposed corruption.
Some officials have spearheaded investigations of officials regarded as corrupt. In some cases the officials that called for the investigations not the corrupt officials ended up in labor camps despite their efforts being largely applauded by ordinary Chinese.
A massive nationwide audit finished in March 2006, found 114 cases if misused funds in 26 departments of the central government. Over $510 million in funds was recovered and dozens of officials were arrested. The funds had taken by falsifying budget reports, claiming excessive expenses and taking money allocated for water projects.
Anti-Corruption Drives in China
Rules passed in June, 1996 prohibited government officials from helping spouses, grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. Anyone who broke the law was subject to "criticism and education."
In 1998, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji led an anti-corruption drive intended to "scare the monkey by killing the chicken." Zhu hoped that by cracking down hard on some high-profile cases others would fall in line. Zhu reportedly flew into a rage and decided something had to be done about corruption when he learned that the reason a dike melted away "like bean curd" during the Yangtze floods was because money intended for steel reinforcing bars ended up in the pockets of corrupt officials. He demanded a stop to "son-of-bitch construction projects."
In December 2006, the Chinese government launched a new anti-corruption drive. A Beijing mayor in charge of construction for the Olympics was arrested and new anti-corruption leaders were installed in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities.
A corruption hotline was set up in June 2009. During it first week of operating it received so many calls (11,000, plus 6,000 messages on the hotline’s website) that the phone lines became overloaded and many people who wanted to provide tips and lodge complaints couldn’t get through.
Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington estimates that the chances of a corrupt official going to jail is about 3 percent, which he said makes “corruption a high-return, low risk activity.”
Anti-Corruption Measures in China
After high level officials were implicated in bribery scandals the Beijing issued a list of six "serious mistakes" that officials should avoid such as using public funds to renovate homes, staying in pricey hotels, joining luxury country clubs and buying expensive cars. Zhu Rongji, Li Peng and other high-level Communist Party members switched from Mercedes to more understated Audis to show that they too were willing to make sacrifices.
New anti-corruption laws were put on the books in 2005. A training school for Communist officials now uses an anti-corruption textbook in 2007; children in elementary and middle school in Beijing began getting compulsory anti-corruption lessons in their “honest education” classes.
In an effort to crackdown corruption, nepotism introduced new policies in January 2007 which require officials to report and register jobs their relatives hold and use investigations to make sure families and relatives are not “offered special favors in jobs that benefit them.” In 2010 that senior cadres began submitting regular reports concerning their incomes, real-estate holdings, investments, as well as changes in the nationalities of their close kin to anti-graft agencies and the CCP Central Commission for Disciplinary Commission. Yet despite calls for more transparency, data such as the personal assets of top officials are neither publicized nor subject to independent auditing
In 2009, government officials were told to tone down their partying, gift giving, banquets and sightseeing trips using government money over the Chinese New Year as part of a crackdown on corruption. New Year is a time when a lot of expensive gifts or cash are given out to win favors, seal shady business deals and say thank you for some favor given.
In 2007, 30 percent of China’s top military officials were audited as part an anti-corruption campaign and warned that any officer that is caught will severely punished.
Proposals to have officials publically disclose their assets and income have failed to be endorsed. In April 2008, the Chinese government enacted a new law that was supposed to boost government transparency and address concerns about corruption. Many ordinary Chinese were unimpressed and said the thing they wanted to know most was the pay and assets of government officials. Critics contend that China’s one-party system breeds graft that only democratic reforms can check. But China’s leaders say the solution is not grass-roots checks on power, but smarter oversight and crime-fighting. [Source: New York Times]
Corruption cases are receiving more media coverage than they used to. Everyday it seems like there is some new revelation involving huge sums of money, Public policy specialists say China is shifting its emphasis from headline-grabbing corruption cases to more systematic ways to hold officials accountable. The government opened an anticorruption hot line last month to encourage whistle-blowers. A few localities require that officials disclose their family assets to the party. [Source: New York Times]
Anti- Corruption Laws in China
The CCDI, the party’s Organization Department and other units have since the mid-2000s issued numerous instructions and codes of practices against the so-called marriage of power and money. For example, the CCP passed in August 2006 a series of rules on the avoidance system, meaning cadres should avoid situations leading to conflict of interests. It warned senior party and government officials against allowing or conniving at spouses and children engaging in businesses within [the cadres’] jurisdiction. [Source: Russell Hsiao, China Brief, June 24, 2010]
In July 2010, assent disclosure laws were expanded to include the business activities of spouses and children. Earlier in the year a document called Certain Regulations on Clean Governance of Leading CCP Cadres listed 52 areas of pitfalls that could result in corruption and other economic crimes. Section Five of the code says cadres must not allow spouses or children, as well as children’s spouses, to pursue private gain by using the former’s privileged positions. Moreover, senior officials must not provide beneficial conditions for the business activities of relatives. [Source: Russell Hsiao, China Brief, June 24, 2010]
In 2008 new regulations were passed that allowed prosecutors to arrest relatives and “secret lovers” of corrupt Chinese officials, giving them seven year sentences if they used the official’s position to accept bribe or otherwise profit illegally. .
As part of anti-corruption effort launched in 2009, Beijing asked government officials to declare their assets and the assets and work of their children and spouses. The party has also ordered nationwide background checks to ensure that "naked officials" (corrupt officials that flee abroad) did not take important posts. Regions like Shenzhen now demand all officials taking important posts to declare whether spouses or children have moved overseas.
China’s Sunshine Policy
Sunshine legislation obliging cadres who have attained a certain seniority to publicize their wealth—as well those of their spouses and kids—is widely seen as the best way to tackle China’s corruption problem. ‘Sunshine’ laws in the United States require that government data be made available to the public.
According to reports in China and Hong Kong papers, a number of progressive cadres had proposed just such a sunshine policy at the Fourth Plenum of the CCP Central Committee, which was held in September 2009. The idea, however, was not adopted at the plenary session. Thus far, only individual provinces and cities have come up with less stringent financial disclosure regulations affecting local-level officials. For example, the Shanxi Province branch of the CCDI issued a ruling early this year saying that senior cadres in the central-China province must report their properties, investments and other assets to superior anti-corruption units. They must also submit a file on the professions and business dealings of spouses and offspring. There was no specification, however, about public disclosure of such information. [Source: Russell Hsiao, China Brief, June 24, 2010]
Local Sunshine Policy in China
In recent years, Beijing has encouraged regional authorities to introduce ‘Sunshine’ policies that tackle corruption through increase transparency. Some local governments have passed such laws. The most impressive example is Baimiao township under Bazhou district of Bazhong city, Sichuan province. A township is the lowest-ranking administrative unit in China's bureaucratic hierarchy. Baimiao has less than 10,000 people yet it still has its own party committee and government. [Source: Wu Zhong, Asia Times, June 16, 2010]
The policy, publicized on the local government's website in 2010, details government revenues and expenditure as well as the salaries and fringe benefits paid to incumbent and retired officials. Baimiao government became fully transparent, so much so that media dubbed it China's first ‘fully naked’ government. [Ibid]
In an interview, Baimiao township party secretary Zhang Yingshang said the idea for his transparency exercise came two years ago while he was studying at a Bazhong city party school. Answering a charge raised by a blogger that Baimiao had hidden accounts and that the online ones were fake, Zhang said all expenditures had to be scrutinized by the township's party disciplinary inspection commission. [Ibid]
Legal Action Against Corruption in China
Since 1999, periodic audits have uncovered billions of dollars of fraud and misused funds. In August 2008 a report was issued that accused ten central government agencies, including the powerful Ministry of Finance, of misusing and embezzling $660 million in 2007. An addition $1 billion was “mismanaged.” According to the report 88 people had been arrested, 14 had been referred to prosecutors and 104 had been punished for their roles in various schemes.
The Chinese government said that it investigated 209,487 people for corruption and abuses of their offices between 2002 and 2007. About 30 percent were found guilty. A total of 35,255 cases involved embezzlement or taking bribes exceeding 100,000 yuan ($14,000) More than 5,000 officials at the county level and above were punished for corruption in 2008 according to state media.
Crackdown on Business Corruption in China
There has been significant a string of recent business-related corruption trials that have brought down top officials in China’s oil and nuclear power industries and felled other executives in the airline, beverage, cellphone and securities businesses, among others.
One notable feature of the 2009 anti-graft campaign has been inclusion of bosses of state-held conglomerates as well as globally known private firms. Among those put on trial were Kang Rixin, the Communist Party boss and General Manager of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), which is in charge of China’s nuclear energy program. As a member of the CCP Central Committee, Kang is one of 204 most powerful cadres in the country. The official Xinhua News Agency said earlier this month that Kang had received ill-gotten gains of 1.8 billion yuan ($260 million).
At about the same time, two ministerial-ranked chiefs of state-owned conglomerates, Li Peiying and Chen Tonghai, were respectively executed and given a suspended death sentence. Li was the chairman of Capital Airports Holding Company, while Chen was the chief executive of Sinopec, the giant oil monopoly. Police chief Zheng, together with several high-profile cadres including the former chairman of the Guangdong Province People’s Political Consultative Conference Chen Shaoji, was incarcerated earlier this year for having provided advantages to the disgraced Chairman of GOME Appliances, Huang Guangyu. Huang, 39, who has yet to be formally charged by police, was until recently considered one of China’s richest men.
In February 2009, the Chinese government announced it would hire more auditors and conduct more rigorous audits as part of its effort to crackdown on corruption. The announcement came in conjunction with the unveiling of plans for a $586 billion economy-reviving stimulus plan to discourage fraud and the siphoning of funds.
China's Feared Jiwei Take on Corruption
The top corruption fighter in China the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI). In each province, city and county, CCDI at staff at different levels are empowered to investigate corruption cases. For example, a provincial commission can investigate prefecture-level officials, and so on. The CCDI are referred to as jiwei in Putonghua. [Source: Wu Zhong, Asian Times, June 9, 2010]
“Jiwei at all levels are not law-enforcement organs - they are more powerful. A jiwei can summon any party or government official under its jurisdiction for questioning and have him or her immediately put under house arrest for investigation. The process is known as shuan'gui. No time limit is set for shuan'gui - an official can be held for as long as is necessary. When enough evidence is found, the official is handed over to the public prosecutor. Before his conviction in 2008 for graft, former Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu was held in shuan'gui for over a year.” [Ibid]
“Shuan'gui is not stipulated in the constitution or any law, and can be authorized without judicial involvement or oversight, leading to criticism from legal experts. But from the CCP's point of view, the party is entitled to whatever steps it needs to keep its own house in order. In China, almost all officials are party members subject to party discipline before they are prosecuted by the law. Also, according to unwritten rules, party members cannot stand trial unless their membership has first been revoked - to save the ruling party embarrassment.” [Ibid]
“The premise that the party polices itself with jiwei seems appropriate for a nation taking on ‘CCP characteristics’. While official corruption appears rampant in China, without jiwei and unconventional methods, it may have run out of control. There is a saying in Chinese officialdom: ‘Powerful officials fear nothing but a knock on their doors by jiwei’.” [Ibid]
“In recent years, President Hu Jintao has further expanded the power of jiwei by making their upper-level clearance a prerequisite for an official's promotion. In essence, jiwei now also hold the political careers of party and government officials in their hands.
Chinese Anti-Corruption Course
Renmin University university offers anti-corruption courses and is helping to train 30 masters students at to investigate corrupt officials. Tania Branigan wrote in The Guardian, Other professors began the year by stressing high academic standards. He Jiahong ordered his students not to buy teachers gifts or take them out for dinner. The law professor has particular reason for scrupulousness: his course at Beijing's prestigious Renmin University is China's first on investigating corruption. Top government prosecutors are helping train 30 masters students to interrogate suspects and administer lie detector tests in pursuit of crooked officials.” [Source: Tania Branigan, The Guardian, January 18, 2011]
Professor He has spent more time than most thinking about corruption in his academic career, as a prosecution official and even in the popular detective novels he has penned in his spare time. His instructions to students underline the endemic nature of corruption in the country. "The parents generally don't want special favors for their kids. If they don't give [professors gifts], they think their child may not be treated equally," he said. "To bribe for equal treatment that's really sad." [Ibid]
He's young students are idealistic as well as angry. Xiong Hao decided to turn his back on social work after his hometown of Chongqing launched a high-profile crackdown on organized crime. Like many residents he was appalled at the scale of complicity that emerged; the former deputy police chief, Wen Qiang, was executed earlier this year for taking bribes to shield gangsters. Since then, more than 170 others had been sacked for similar collusion. [Ibid]
"There were so many officials who committed corruption and it affected so many people's lives. I thought by choosing this course I could do something meaningful to change things," he said. "We are only 30 students, but I think it's an important signal; it means our government is emphasizing solving the problem." [Ibid]
"The [suspects] are public officials so they might have power and useful relationships. It's not like murder or theft, where you are dealing with street guys. Local governments support investigation of those crimes, but sometimes with a corruption investigation you cannot get support," added He. [Ibid]
He hopes his graduates will become leaders in their field, but said prevention was more important than investigation or punishment. "We have the death penalty but we still have so many corrupt officials," he pointed out, arguing that tighter rules on declaring assets were needed, along with an amnesty so corrupt officials can start afresh and most ambitiously rule of law. [Ibid]
Human Flesh Search Engines
Blogs sometimes serve as underground police and morality and corruption checks in China. “Human flesh search engines” is the term used to describe the online of community of cyber sleuths and vigilantes that use the Internet to expose perceived wrongdoers and bring attention to mistakes made by the media and the government. The community has millions of members and a following that numbers at least in the tens of million and perhaps hundreds of millions.
Investigators use databases, photo analysis, search engines, social networking sites and hacking into online accounts. The most damaging postings are often video or photographs dug up somewhere that show someone doing something really bad and millions of people see it. The targets are often government officials. The government has a hard time controlling them.
One video that appeared in October 2008, showed an unnamed official in the city of Shenzhen in a confrontation with family members of an 11-year-old girl he allegedly tried to force into a restroom. In it the official said, “I did it, so what? How much money do you want? Give me a price. I will pay it.” Then he points to the girl’s father and says, “Do you now who I am? I was sent here by the Transportation Ministry in Beijing. I have the same seniority as your mayor. So what if I grabbed a little child’s neck.” It wasn’t long before the official was identified, Lin Jiaxiang, a party secretary in the Shenzhen Maritime Administration, and fired. Another cadre was fired when bloggers noticed he was wearing a $15,000 Swiss watch.
In December 2007, in a another well known case, a woman named Jiang Yan committed suicide by jumping from the 24th floor of building. In a blog found after she died she blamed her husband’s affair. Cybersleuths tracked down the husband Wang Fei, and published online details of his life. Wang received death threats and messages like “pay back your wife’s bloody death.” His parents were harassed. People picketed outside his workplace, forcing him to quit his advertising job.
Middle-level officials spotted smoking expensive cigarettes wearing fancy watches or driving in luxury cars sometimes are photographed by Internet sleuths who post the images online on “human flesh search engines” for all to see. Some have been investigated for embezzlement and fired.
There are examples of businessmen wining and dining officials and secretly taping the encounter and turning the tables demanding that the officials do what the businessmen want, threatening to turn the officials in if they don’t do what the businessmen want.
In 2010, Han Feng, a mid-level party official in southern China, got into trouble when his private diary was posted online. In the diary, he catalogued not just the hefty bribes he was taking, but detailed his sexual escapades with co-workers and mistresses. The ensuing online uproar led to his sacking and a criminal investigation.
Videotapes of corrupt party elite show them giving $3,000 tips at a favorite restaurant and paying karaoke bar hostesses $1,000 to sing a favorite song. Video equipment intended for a school ends up in the home of a chief. Mah-jongg is also a convenient ways to pass a bribe. Businessmen often play with officials that always win.
Convictions in the Crackdown on Corruption in China
Investigations and convictions are visibly increasing. The English-language Global Times newspaper reported that 14 government officials at the ministerial or provincial levels were fired in 2009 for corruption, the most in the last three decades, and that the number of officials caught embezzling more than a million renminbi, or about $145,000, last year was up by nearly one-fifth from 2008. Although prosecutions have increased, many analysts say investigations remain spotty, and their targets are often chosen for political reasons.
State news agency Xinhua said that China punished 146,517 officials for corruption in 2010. In a 1994 crackdown on corruption, 20,180 "economic criminals" were nabbed, including one vice minister, 28 division chiefs and 202 department heads. Investigations into more than 30,000 cases of possible corruption were launched in 2000. Some of these charged with corruption have been given long prison sentence and even been executed.
In 2004, 43,57 government officials were investigated on corruption charges. In 2005, 30,025 official were indicted on corruption charges. The amount of embezzled money recovered increased by 60 percent to $920 million. There were so many corruption cases in the courts that China now was faces a shortage of judges. In some cases entire departments have been investigated. The Chinese proverb "When a turnip is pulled out of the ground, some soil will inevitably come with it," certainly applies to China's crackdowns on official graft, with the associates of guilty parties often soon implicated in the crime.
Death Sentences for Corruption in China
Reaction to death sentence verdict In January, 1995, The wife of the Communist governor of the Guizhou Province was executed for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds to build a restaurant, massage parlor and spa that catered to the handful of rich people that lived in Guizhou. On the way to the execution grounds she was paraded through the streets of several cities, shackled to back of a flat bed truck. Her final words, "I haven't knelt since Liberation."
Between 2000 and 2005 at least 25 government officials were sentence to death for accepting bribes or kickbacks. In March 2000, Hu Changqing, the former deputy governor of eastern Jianxi Province, was executed after being convicted of accepting bribes worth more than $600,000. He was the highest-ranking official ever sentenced to death for corruption. His trial and conviction were front-page news on the state newspapers on a leading story on television news.
In August 2000, Cheng Kejie, a former vice chairman of the National People's Congress, was executed for taking $4.9 million in bribe for awarding government contracts and arranging sweetheart real estate deals. The judge who handed out the sentence said, "The amount of the bribes Cheng took was extremely huge...and the crimes he committed in the capacity of a senior leading official has seriously violated the normal working order of government institutions."
Some of those who were executed were displayed and photographed with signs hung from their necks that read “corrupt and degenerate.” Some of the more well known had these photographs made into posters that were widely displayed as examples. A number of deaths sentences handed down in corruption trials are often said to be politically motivated
More Death Sentences for Corruption in China
In May 2004, Lu Wanli, a former director of the Communications Department of Guizhou Province, was sentenced to death for embezzling $6.6 million. He sent his family and much of the money to Australia. He was caught in Fiji and repatriated. An official in Guangxi was executed for receiving about $5 million in bribes, kickbacks and illicit loans. His concubine often acted as his go-between and agent.
In February 2004 a vice governor in Anhui province was executed by lethal injection for accepting $623,000 in bribes between 1994 and 2001 and being unable to explain how he obtained $600,000 in assets, which far exceeded what he should have been able to obtain with his salary. In March 2005, Bi Yuxi, Beijing’s top highway administrator was sentenced to death for accepting $1.2 million in bribes and misspending $360,000 in public funds.
In 2006, two China Construction Bank employees—branch manager Zhou Limin and accountant Liu Yibing—were put to death with a lethal injection for stealing almost $52 million from bank customers., who had been promised high interest rates on what turned out to be bogus accounts. Around the same time Oil executive Lin Ringxing was sentenced to death for embezzling $4 million at another China Construction Bank branch and taking $620,000 in bribes.
Executing and dishing out harsh penalties so many people for corruption resulted in more than 4,000 corrupt officials fleeing the country according to a report in 2004.
In December 2007, Li Baojin, a former prosecutor in the northern city of Tianjin, was sentenced to death for taking bribes and embezzling funds worth $2.66 million, including $760,000 in bribes he took from seven businessmen between 1996 and 2006 when he was chief prosecutor and deputy police chief in Tianjin.
In July, 2007, China’s top food and health official, Zheng Xiaoyu, was executed on corruption charges in connection with taking $850,000 in bribes from eight companies in return for approving untested drugs and e counterfeit medicines. One of the fake drugs, an antibiotic, was blamed for the deaths of at least 10 people. He was executed within a few weeks of when a court handed down his death sentence. The swift move was largely seen as both an effort to reassure the international community that China was serious about tackling safety issues and an example of “slaughtering the chicken to warn the monkey” to keep other officials in line. It was the first time an official of such a high tank had been executed since 2000. Zheng’s execution was popular among ordinary Chinese.
In July 2009 the former chairman of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, the oil giant known as Sinopec, was sentenced to death for taking more than $28 million in bribes. The former chairman, Chen Tonghai, was given a two-year reprieve for helping prosecutors with other investigations. In August 2009, Li Peiyang, the former head of the company that owns Beijing airport, was executed after being convicted of bribery and embezzling $16 million. In July 2010, Wen Qiang, a former deputy police chief and justice chief in Chongqing, was executed for rape and taking bribes to shield gangsters.
Party Members Imprisoned for Corruption in China
Members of the Communist Party elite suspected of corruption usually weasel their way out of prison sentences After a long investigation, a minister and vice minister who were charged with embezzling $46 million from the astronautics ministry were only given a "serious disciplinary warning within the party."
But this is not always the case. Chen Xitong, a Beijing Party Secretary and close ally of Li Peng, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in the mid 1990s for embezzlement and his involvement in a scandal worth as much as $2.2 billion and involving mistresses and secret villas.
Other high-ranking cadres who have been arrested for corruption include Dandong mayor Chan Yi, who was involved in smuggling 277 cars and trucks into China; Wang Baosen, a vice mayor who shot himself in the head after it revealed that he embezzled $35 million in public funds to pay for mistresses and "degenerate" living; and Ma Xiangdong, a deputy mayor of Shenyang who was arrested for gambling away $4 million in public funds.
The mayor of a small city in southeastern Zhejiang province was sentenced to life imprisonment for collecting bribes and gifts worth $30,000. The vice mayor of Shenzhen was sentenced to 20 years in prison for accepting $100,000 in bribes from real estate developers. Zhou Beifing, the "princeling" son of one of Deng's close friends, was given a two year suspended sentence for accepting $1.2 million in bribes between June 1993 and April 1994 and offering $150,000 in bribes to three Beijing officials.
Corruption Sentences for Officials in China
Anhui Province vice governor, He Minxu, was given a suspended death sentence, usually commuted to life imprisonment, for taking $1 million in bribes.
In October 2008, an official in tourist city of Suzhou was sentenced to death for taking more than $14 million in bribes; ex-Beijing vice mayor, Liu Zhinhua was given a suspended death sentence, usually commuted to life imprisonment, for taking bribes $1 million in connection with his job overseeing Olympics construction jobs.
A suspended death sentence is usually commuted to life imprisonment after two years if the person shows good behavior.
In November 2008, a Chinese Communist official was fired after accosting a young girl while drunk. The official, Lin Jiaxiang, in the Shenzhen Marine Affairs Bureau, grabbed an 11-year-old girl by the throat and tried to force here into the men’s toilet while at a restaurant in Shenzhen. When the girl’s’ parents complained the official offered to pay hem. The girl was so shaken up by the incident she could not go to school. The incident was recorded on the restaurant’s security cameras and footage was posted on video-sharing websites.
In August 2009, China’s’ top nuclear power official Kang Rixin was sacked for squandering public funds and taking bribes of up to $260 million. Among the high-level officials put on trial in 2009 were Assistant Minister of Public Security Zheng Xiaodong; head of the multi-billion dollar Binhai Development Zone in Tianjin, Pi Qiansheng; Mayor of Shenzhen Xu Zongheng; and the Vice-President of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Huang Songyou. [Source: Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, Willy Lam, August 17, 2009]
Corruption Sentences for Business People in China
In May 2009, two former managers of the Bank of China—Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun—and their wives were sentenced to jail in the United States by a U.S. court for a scheme that used U.S. banks, and casinos to launder $485 million they stole from the bank, The two men were sentenced to 25 and 22 years, their wives each were sentenced to eight years
The industrialist Feng Mingchang was implicated in a $1.2-billion loan scandal in which he reportedly bribed 223 bankers and government officials. He was sentenced to life in prison. One of his bankers was sentenced to death.
In July 2009 the former head of oil giant Sinopec was given a suspended death sentence after being found guilty of engaging in corrupt practices and accepting $27 million in illegal funds.
Obstacles to Fighting Corruption in China
As a rule whistle blowing is generally not welcomed. Whistle blowers are sometimes viscously attacked and harassed by party members they have targeted. In August 2004, a whistle-blower who attracted nationwide attention by accusing his superiors in Fuzhou city in the southern county of Lianjiang of tolerating official corruption was denounced for breaking party rules and ordered to “do a complete self-examination” by Communist party officials.
In August 2004, a low-level cadre made headlines with an open letter in the People’s Daily in which he complained that his efforts to fight corruption were often stymied by more senior officials. “I couldn’t get any support from local leaders or departments, I was puzzled, ” he wrote..” He then detailed a case against a dishonest local official and the businessmen he worked with and described the “underlying rules” used by corrupt Chinese official to protect one another. Perhaps what was most extraordinarily was the willingness of the government to let the letter be published in a periodical regarded as a mouthpiece for the government.
Laws against business corruption are rarely enforced. The government refuses to take steps such as creating an independent judiciary and unshackling the media, which would do the most to tackle corruption. Censors have also imposed media blackouts on the coverage if corruption cases.
Even though senior leaders have described the battle against corruption as a life and death struggle for the party and launched repeated campaigns and made high-profile arrests, corruption remains entrenched as ever. Government measures seem to have had little effect; perhaps, say cynics, because the latter often owe as much to political infighting as the level of misbehavior involved. Even those supposed to uphold the laws have proved adept at breaking it. In September a senior anti-corruption official received a suspended death sentence for taking 7.71m yuan (about $1 billion) in bribes to help people gain advantages in business and court cases or avoid arrest. [Source: Tania Branigan, The Guardian]
James Pomfret of Reuters wrote, “The stranglehold on power by Communist Party officials, particularly at a local level, and the lack of an independent judiciary and free media, have severely hampered efforts to clean up governance as China's booming economy and ultra-capitalist impulses present ever greater opportunities for graft.”
Tania Branigan wrote in The Guardian, “While democracy does not guarantee clean government India and Argentina rate worse than China in the corruption perception rankings produced by Transparency International many think it is impossible to rein in officials unless they are properly accountable to citizens. Mao Yushi, a Beijing-based expert on governance, said independent courts are the key: "We need to push for an independent judicial system and political reform. "The Communist party cannot monopolise power and rights should be returned to the people".
Resistance to Local Sunshine Policy in China
A full ‘Sunshine’ policy like the one piloted in Baimiao would destroy the ‘hidden rules’ prevailing among officials and business people that ensures opaque governance and allows corruption. The resistance is strong. Baimiao could be compared to a 21st-century Don Quixote taking on a giant windmill. Even before Baimiao received the blessing of the power center to introduce its ‘Sunshine’ policy, it ran into delays and ‘punishments’ from officialdom and business circles. [Source: Wu Zhong, Asia Times, June 16, 2010]
According to a report by Chengdu Commercial Daily on June 7, township party secretary Zhang has complained that since the ‘Sunshine’ policy was widely reported in mid-March, Baimiao government operations have been virtually boycotted by higher-level authorities. [Ibid]
“Now much fewer officials from our superior government make work trips to Baimiao. Those who do come refuse to dine with us, even during meal times. I find it sad and hard to understand. Given our normal work relations, it's nothing strange for them to have lunch or dinner with us. Why do they prefer to leave with an empty stomach?” Zhang said. [Ibid]
In China, business is often negotiated at dinner tables. No wining and dining (and often bribes), no business. This is even true for government-to-government business. The ‘Sunshine’ policy has effectively cut off Baimiao's guanxi (connections) with the outside world. Many of the Baimiao government's projects have been shelved or boycotted. [Ibid]
Director of Baimiao township Ou Mingqing told Chengdu Commercial Daily that to improve people's livelihoods the local authorities had devised projects to expand and renovate the township's water and electricity supplies, and road network. The projects were approved and supported by leaders of the Bazhou district. ‘However, only the city bureau of electricity said it would try to help later this year. All other relevant authorities either said they did not have the funds or plans for our projects,’ a frustrated Ou said. [Ibid]
Feebleness of Chinese Corruption-Fighting Efforts
Every year Beijing announces new anticorruption drives, new laws and new policies aimed at dealing with the problem. But every year the scale of fraud seems enormous, particularly in a country where the average person earns less than $50 a week. [Source: New York Times]
There are no checks and balances to prevent putatively virtuous officials from abusing their powers. This is despite President Hu’s pledge during his early 2010 CCDI address that the CCP would work harder at the construction of an anti-corruption mechanism. Thus, Hu called for intensified and improved publicity on anti-corruption measures, reform and improvement of intra-party supervision, expanded supervision channels, and the establishment of an anti-corruption information database and network Owing to the lack of an independent anti-graft agency, however, what Hu called intra-party supervision has amounted to little more than the CCP investigating itself. [Source: Russell Hsiao, China Brief, June 24, 2010]
“Politburo members in charge of discipline and personnel have continued to put priority over personalities—meaning picking trustworthy candidates for high office—instead of introducing institutional safeguards. The emphasis on nurturing virtuous officials of exemplary moral rectitude of course goes back to the Confucianist ethos.” [Ibid]
In 2009, the Study Times, the mouthpiece of the Central Party School, raised eyebrows when it ran an article suggesting that newly hired cadres should set an example by publicizing their personal properties. The piece pointed out that fresh recruits should be subjected to higher demands [because] they are relatively young, more willing to accept new things, and are expected soon to shoulder heavy responsibilities. For liberal commentator Sheng Xiong, however, the Study Times article is an insult to the intelligence of the public. He wrote in Procuratorial Daily, an organ of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, that in China’s system, it is always seniors and veterans who set an example for juniors. [Source: Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, Willy Lam, August 17, 2009]
Protection for Well-Connected Officials in China
Hu Haifeng, the 38-year-old son of President Hu was the head of Nuctech Company Limited, a manufacturer of high-tech scanning devices, until 2008. In 2009, the company was accused by anti-graft agencies in Namibia of having used bribes and other illegal means to obtain a government contract worth $55.3 million. There is no evidence that Hu, who has since been promoted party secretary of Tsinghua Holdings, which controls Nuctech and 30-odd other companies, either knew or approved of the shady deal. Yet Namibian authorities wanted to question him as a witness. The same day that the story broke in mid-July, however, the CCP Propaganda Department ordered all media and Internet websites not to carry the news. Chinese Netizens have also been blocked from reading or finding any reference to either Hu or Nuctech. [Source: Jamestown Foundation, China Brief, Willy Lam, August 17, 2009]
Image Sources: 1) BBC; 2) Reuters
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
