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3 China's flawed fight against
corruption By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - Ahead of its 17th
National Congress next autumn, the power center of
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has begun to
restructure its anti-graft system to strengthen
its direct supervision of the behavior of regional
officials in the hope of more effectively curbing
rampant corruption.
President Hu Jintao's
renewed efforts to clean China's officialdom
reached a climax in September when the CCP sacked its
Shanghai chief, Chen Liangyu,
who was also one the 24 members of the Politburo -
the party's very power core - on charges of
corruption.
But Chen's downfall also
exposed a serious defect in the country's
anti-graft system, prompting the power center to
speed up the restructuring.
Problems
with the system In China, almost all
senior government officials are party members;
hence the country's anti-graft campaign is pretty
much a house-cleaning job of the CCP itself. Under
the current system, there is the Central
Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI) at
the top of the party hierarchy that in fact also
acts as the country's top anti-graft watchdog.
Accordingly, there is a commission for
disciplinary inspection under each regional party
committee to act as local anti-graft watchdog.
But the big drawback of this system is
that the head of a local commission for
disciplinary inspection (CDI) is practically
appointed by the regional party committee and as
such is under the command of, and has to report
to, the local party chief. Under such a system, a
regional party chief is virtually immune to
supervision by the local watchdog and can hardly
be checked if he or she becomes corrupt, unless
the case is brought to the attention of the power
center.
Under the principle of "upholding
the party's absolute leadership", the party chief
of a region is like a king with all officials
subordinate to him. In such a system, to ask the
head of the local anti-graft watchdog to supervise
the party chief would be like asking someone to
lift himself up in the air by pulling up his own
hair with his own hands.
It is no wonder
that so far major corruption cases involving local
party chiefs have been mainly uncovered after the
CCDI was tipped by anonymous informants. Local
anti-graft watchdogs hardly play any role in this.
For example, the smuggling case in
Guangdong's Zhanjiang city, which was uncovered in
late 1998 on tips from anonymous informants,
involved the then Zhanjiang party chief Chen
Tongqing, executive vice mayor Ye Zhencheng,
Zhanjiang customs chief Cao Xiukang, and more than
200 other party and government officials. Eleven
billion yuan (about US$1.4 billion) worth of goods
were smuggled into China through Zhanjiang between
1996 and 1998 without being "noticed" by the local
anti-graft watchdog or other law-enforcement
agencies.
One year later, in 1999, the
CCDI again received a 74-page anonymous letter
alleging rampant smuggling activities in Xiamen
city of Fujian province. Instructed by
then-premier Zhu Rongji, the top anti-graft
watchdog sent a special force in early 2000 to
investigate. As a result, the notorious Yuanhua
smuggling case, involving goods worth 80 billion
yuan, was uncovered. Yuanhua boss Lai Changxing,
tipped by a senior Fujian official, fled to
Canada, where he is still seeking political
asylum.
At least 300 officials were
convicted of involvement in the Yuanhua case. They
included the former the party chief, three deputy
party chiefs and three vice mayors of Xiamen, as
well as a number of Fujian provincial party and
government officials. Not only that, some central
government officials and military officers were
also implicated, including former vice minister of
public security Li Jizhou and the former
intelligence chief of the People's Liberation
Army, Ji Shengde.
Similarly, it was a CCDI
investigation, again after a tip by informants,
into alleged illegal land requisitions and related
official corruption in Shanghai that finally led
to the downfall of Shanghai party chief Chen
Liangyu. In late September, the CCP sacked Chen
for his alleged involvement in the misuse of
Shanghai's social-security funds running into
billions of yuan. His other posts, including his
Politburo membership, have also been also
suspended pending further investigations. Reports
in official Chinese media strongly indicate that
he is likely to be prosecuted and given a heavy
jail term.
If he was corrupt himself, Chen
naturally would cover and protect his corrupt
subordinates. It is little wonder then that under
his rule, no Shanghai official has ever been
netted in the nationwide crackdown on official
corruption. But with his downfall, more than 50
Shanghai party and government officials have
already come under investigation for suspected
corruption.
These are typical cases
showing that once a regional party chief becomes
corrupt, the outcome can be extensive because he
is
