Killing a big chicken to scare the
monkeys By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - The Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) is aimed at killing several birds with
one stone by passing down an unusually harsh
penalty, death, to a former senior central
government official last week.
On May 29,
Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, who was head of the State Food
and Drug Administration (SFDA) from its founding
in 1998 until mid-2005, was given the death
sentence by Beijing Municipal No 1 Intermediate
Court. Zheng's lawyer said he would appeal the
verdict. However, his appeal
is most likely to be turned down.
It is
rare that such a high-ranking official would be
executed for corruption. So far only three
minister-level or higher-ranking officials have
been executed after being convicted of corruption.
Cheng Kejie, vice chairman of the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC),
and Hu Changqing, vice governor of Jiangxi
province, were executed in 2002. Wang Huizhong,
vice governor of Anhui province, was executed in
2003. Zheng thus is likely to become the fourth
minister-level official to be executed for
corruption.
Zheng was convicted of taking
bribes worth 6.49 million yuan (US$844,000). This
is not very much compared with bribes received by
other convicted officials who were given lesser
penalties. For instance, Han Guizhi, former vice
chairwoman of the Heilongjiang Provincial
Committee of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and also a
minister-level official, was convicted of taking
bribes worth 7.02 million yuan. Tian Yufei, former
Communist Party secretary of Jianwei County in
Sichuan province, was convicted of taking bribes
worth 18.59 million yuan; Zhi Faliang, former
director of Henan provincial communication bureau,
19 million yuan; and Bi Yuxi, former vice director
of Beijing municipal communication bureau, 19
million yuan. All of them were given a suspended
death sentence, which usually would be reduced to
life imprisonment.
In delivering Zheng
such harsh a punishment, Beijing wants to
safeguard the relatively clean image and authority
of the central government so as to sustain CCP
rule.
A recent survey by the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences shows that the central
government is the most trusted by the majority of
Chinese people. A major reason is that they
believe the central government still largely
remains clean in a country where official
corruption is running rampant.
And indeed,
in the crackdown on official corruption over the
past decade, most of officials netted for graft
have been local ones. So far only a handful of
central-government officials have been accused of
corruption. They are, in addition to Zheng, former
vice minister of public security Li Jizhou, former
director of the State Bureau of Statistics Qiu
Xiaohua, and former minister of lands and
resources Tian Fengshan.
It is vital for
the CCP to maintain the clean image of the central
government. If people begin to believe that even
the central government is becoming corrupt, they
would completely give up their confidence in
Beijing's sincerity in cracking down on official
corruption. Then the party's rule would really be
in jeopardy.
This may explain why
convicted central-government officials have been
given more stringent penalties. Tian was jailed in
late 2005 for life for taking bribes worth 4.36
million yuan. Li was given a suspended death
sentence in 2001 for shielding smuggling kingpin
Lai Changxing, who is still seeking asylum in
Canada. Qiu was dismissed from his post last year
and awaits prosecution.
In Beijing's
calculation, giving Zheng the capital penalty
should help ease growing public anger over medical
care in particular and over official corruption in
general. Medical care, education and housing have
been identified as three major sources of growing
public anger in China nowadays. Easing public
discontent is in line with President Hu Jintao's
call for building a "harmonious society".
One reason for Chinese people to get angry
over medical care is the soaring expense. And a
major reason for soaring medical care expanse is
that the prices of drugs are skyrocketing. And it
is the SFDA that licenses the marketing of drugs
and supervises pricing. According to Chinese media
reports, Zheng took bribes from drug makers to
allow them to set high prices to make staggering
profits. As a result, drugs sell at prices tens of
times as high as their production costs.
Moreover, people become increasingly angry
over lack of government supervision on drugs and
foodstuffs. Scandals have been exposed in recent
years about shabby-quality and even fake drugs and
foodstuffs circulating in markets in large
quantities, threatening people's health and lives.
During Zheng's tenure, dozens died in the country
from fake or inferior-quality drugs or foodstuffs.
In one of the most notorious cases, at
least 13 babies died in 2004 of malnutrition in
Anhui province after being fed fake milk powder.
Zheng as the former SFDA chief now is held
responsible for all this. It is reported that he
even took bribes and gave licenses for the
production of fake drugs, and that he would not
even dare to take drugs produced with licenses
issued by himself. A State Council meeting on
January 24 chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao concluded
that Zheng's case "has done vast damage,
threatening the masses' health, seriously damaging
the image of the party and government. It must be
seriously dealt with by the law." In short, in
Beijing's view, Zheng has to be executed to
assuage public anger.
Furthermore, Zheng's
death penalty is given ahead of the CCP's
all-important 17th National Congress this autumn
in which Hu will consolidate his position as
China's supreme leader. This would help win
greater public support for Hu to boost his
authority before the meeting of the party elite.
Last but not least important, Zheng's
death penalty serves as a tough warning to party
and government officials that the Hu-Wen
leadership is serious with its pledge to crack
down on official corruption. In this sense,
Beijing literally applies an ancient Chinese
tactic of "killing a chicken to scare the
monkeys".
A commentary in the People's
Daily, the CCP's official newspaper, said: "As a
case study of a party member and leading official
breaking the law and committing crimes, the Zheng
Xiaoyu case offers profound lessons that all
public servants, especially leading officials at
every level, should take to heart."
The
message is clear that the CCP will continue and
strengthen its crackdown on official corruption
after the 17th Party Congress.
However,
many "chickens" have been killed since the late
1990s when then-president Jiang Zemin started the
anti-graft campaign. But it seems, as illustrated
by Zheng's case, the "monkeys" have not been
scared. Instead, official corruption has become
even more rampant and the amount of money a
corrupt official dares to take has become ever
larger.
As many have repeatedly pointed
out, the problem is that there lacks checks and
supervision on the power officials. "Absolute
power leads to absolute corruption" - this proves
a universal truth. Therefore, if the Hu-Wen
leadership really wants to rid or significantly
reduce official corruption, it must consider
launching some kind of political reform so power
will be checked and supervised. Otherwise,
execution of a corrupt official such as Zheng will
prove just an expedient measure that "soothes the
symptoms but does not cure the disease".
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