Making Sense of Corruption

It should be no surprise that North Korea regularly tops the list of corrupt countries in Transparency International’s annual surveys.  It is a one-party state run by a third generation despot.  But China is also a one-party state that lacks an independent legal system and it comes out at halfway down the list, i.e. at number 80.  I find that interesting because I believe that China is extremely corrupt and I wonder if there is some bias in the survey methodology – and it is pretty hard to imagine an effective way to measure a practice that officially doesn’t exist.  It is, however, fair to say that there are worse places than China because here, in day-to-day living and in mundane transactions like buying phone credit or paying bills, there are no extras to pay.  This sort of stuff goes quite smoothly and there are no obvious irregularities.   On the surface at least, China looks clean.

For anyone doing business here or simply following the news, it quickly becomes clear that corruption is pervasive.  Frequent arrests and the trial of officials at all levels, most recently that of Bo Xi Lai, clearly reveal this.  At the same time, to an outsider, the same arrests and trials appear to show how the Party assiduously works to root cooruption out, even at the highest levels.  The Chinese press dutifully echoes the Party line, explaining that no matter how powerful these corrupt officials may be, the Party will show no fear or favour in bringing them to justice.

If only it were true.  You only have to ask yourself how it is that so many Chinese leaders and officials all the way down to my local customs chief can afford to send their kids to foreign universities, to realize that something is not quite what it seems.  Could it be that the very officials leading the anti-corruption campaign are themselves corrupt?  Short answer: emphatically “yes”.

It all comes back to the one-party state.  In a land where there are no checks and balances; no independent parliament, media, courts, education system and no meaningful plurality of opinion tolerated, there is no way to systematically attack corruption.  Every intelligent person recognizes this and laments it, but what can he or she do?  Nobody really believes in the ideology any more. It is all hollow theatre, a church of non-believers going through the motions to avoid dangerous accusations of heresy by cynical rivals.  Add to this that, while the country’s economic boom continues to pump out new millionaires every day, the salaries of ordinary officials are barely sufficient to feed a family.  Even at the pinnacle of the Party, the monthly salary is just a few thousand dollars a month.   Finally, there is tradition.  Before the one-party state, was, except for a brief interlude, the no-party state.  The imperial system was much the same as the current system in that the imperial court dictated everything of importance.  There was no system of independent checks and balances.  It is true to say that the Party is, in fact, the heir to the imperial system and that, as has been pointed out before, Mao was the Red Emperor.  So this tradition of corruption has its roots very deep in Chinese culture. 

Now put yourself in the position of a mid-level official in any section of the bureaucracy.  You know the rules; don’t get too greedy and keep your nose out of Party business.  Are you going to be the only person in the office who does not except the gift vouchers, the fancy dinners, the offer of cheap rent or the use of your friend’s villa on the occasional weekend?  If you decide to stay poor and scrupulously honest, remember that you are going to be seen as a threat to your colleagues, and you must accept also that you will never be promoted.   Unless everyone has his snout in the trough, no one can feel safe.  And, after all, a few perks do not make you rotten to the core.  You can tell yourself that it is the system that is rotten to the core, not the individual.  Why should your family suffer when there is plenty to go around anyway?  How can you tell your wife that she can never have the things that departmental colleagues wives have.  How can we not have a car, when everyone else has one?  Why can our little emperor not go to Canada like his friends do?

One of my friends in a government office told me that he was resigned to staying at his current level because he could not afford the next promotion.  What?  Yes, it would cost about $40,000 to get up to the next level and he did not have the money.  I do not know how widespread this is, but I know that it is not uncommon.  Sinecures are dispensed for cash by the upper echelons of the agencies based on the value of the positions, which means the amount that can be “earned” in the respective jobs.

How is it that this apparent house of cards does not come tumbling down when the Party is constantly running fierce anti-corruption campaigns?   I always save the best part till last.  Well fellow Sinophytes, if everyone is guilty all of the time, then the Party reigns supreme.  When everyone has been given plenty of rope, the Party can decide at will who is to be hanged.  With the wisdom of hindsight you can go back and re-read the entire Bo Xi Lai drama and figure out what that was about.  The apparent paradox of former Premier Wen Jiao Bao’s ill-gotten billions should also now be somewhat less of a paradox.