I have often found myself being asked the following question for the past two years: Since the Chinese communist regime is so corrupt, why is China still under its rule?
Let's put it this way. If China were a democratic country, the communist regime would be unable to survive. Because it is a totalitarian regime which employs such sinister methods as coercion, a network of secret agents, and police rule, it is thus able to maintain stability on the surface. To gain a deeper understanding of its political stability, or lack thereof, the following two points can serve as an index for measurement: The extent to which corruption is tolerated in Chinese society and the "safety degree" of corruption by officials. I created the two indexes to measure the governors who often find themselves caught up in conflicts of interest, and the attitudes of the ruled towards corruption.
The index to examine the ruled is labeled "corruption tolerance." The so-called "corruption tolerance" is measured via the following avenues: first, the permeation of corruption; second, surveys and public opinions; third, the frequency of social turmoil. The extent to which corruption has managed to permeate the nation depends on whether corruption endangers people's abilities and rights to survive, rather than on the increase or decrease of big cases investigated by the regime.
The other index to examine those in power is the "safety degree" of corruption, that is, the rate of punishment for corruption (i.e. it is the cost that corrupt officials have to pay for their misdeeds). These tend to move in opposite directions. There is a greater amount of difficulty involved in counting the former. It is unlikely that researchers are able to calculate the exact percentage of corrupt officials among civil servants before they are brought to justice. The following statement is nothing more than a description of rampant corruption and can never be the basis for research. "If high-ranking officials above the chief level lined up to be shot, there would be injustice involved. If one out of two were shot, there would be some who deserved it that would be left out."
I'll put it the following way. Before the release of my book The Pitfalls of Modernization , corruption was much more tolerated in the Chinese society. For one thing, at that time corruption hadn't endangered people's rights to survive, nor had there been any large-scale destruction of civilian homes and illegal acquisition of farmland by the regime. This is a point of critical importance. In Chinese society, acquisition of any position or advantage is based largely on one's relations with those in positions of power. Having assimilated themselves into a culture where corruption is deeply rooted in people's worship of relations, Chinese farmers are comparatively more tolerant of corruption. However, because of the fact that officials violently deprive them of their basic necessities, Chinese farmers continue to grow more and more intolerant of corruption. For example, almost four million residents in cities were forced to leave their homes, and over 60 million farmers were deprived of their farmland. The decrease in tolerance for corruption can be proved by the investigations into officials and public opinion.
All of this corruption is actively recognized among officials and is illustrated by the surveys taken from local department chiefs of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee. In 2004, one of the survey questions read, "Your opinion of the critical factor in obtaining success in future revolution of the political system." Of the nine choices for answers to this question, "Strengthen resistance to corruption" ranked fifth. In 2006, 300 officials were surveyed. Out of all the answers to the question, "What is the essential social problem to be resolved for constructing a harmonious society based on socialism?", "the problem of corruption" came in second place behind "the problem of social welfare."
On the other hand, public surveys have always ranked corruption as one of the top three problems within the regime. This year the public opinion investigation center of the China Economic Times and the www.qq.com jointly conducted a poll, entitled "The Obstacle to Our Harmony." The item "lack of power supervision and rampant corruption" ranked as number one. Last year over 80,000 cases of social unrest were reported, which is a slight increase when compared with the previous year.
What appears to be amusing is that there has been no decrease in the "safety degree" of corruption by officials. Here I would like to exemplify the rate of punishment for corruption by citing cases investigated by the Land Administrative Department in recent years, which has been involved in multiple cases of corruption. Based on incomplete statistics of the Land Resources Department, in 2003, there were over 168,000 cases of land violations nationwide, including the neglected ones from previous years. But only 134 people were claimed against for criminal responsibility. (This is in addition to disciplinary action taken against 728 people in violation of party and administrative policies.) This means that less than one percent of all violators were punished. Another type of case that demonstrates the large amount of "safety degree" corruption is the one related to corruption of social insurance funds. Take Guangzhou for example. In Guangzhou City one billion dollars worth of social insurance funds were misappropriated. The regime's way of dealing with the misappropriation represents and reflects how the authorities deal with corruption while avoiding punishment. Not until 2001 was the case in question investigated. It was not until the following year that a few of the individuals involved in the crimes were sparingly punished. The most severe punishment was a 10 year prison sentence. Most notably, the regime forbade China's media from discussing this case and pledged to use government finances to make up for the misappropriated funds. Apparently, the chance of officials having to pay for their crimes is very low, as the political system is stacked heavily in their favor.
According to the survey conducted at the Party School, the local department chiefs are quite conscious of the social tension caused by an increased lack of tolerance for corruption. But because the protection offered by the system is getting stronger, corruption among officials has not decreased. On the other hand, China offers the world a special case for the research of corruption. Of all the notoriously corrupt countries, the Chinese communist regime is the only one that keeps emphasizing its crackdown on corruption, while people's tolerance for corruption is being stretched to the breaking point. Even still, the probability that officials will have to be held accountable for their criminal activities is still very low. On top of all of this, many officials who do end up being charged and/or convicted of crimes end up fleeing to foreign countries in order to escape punishment and to protect their accomplices.
If the regime continues to allow officials to run rampant, the sharp contrast in reduced tolerance for corruption will more than likely result in the collapse of the regime. The bottom line unfortunately, is that throughout the whole process, the Chinese people have and will continue to be the ones to bear the suffering.
Reprinted from issue 193, Hauxiadianzibao
