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2 Resentment builds against China's
wealthy By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - Back in the good old days,
when Deng Xiaoping first signaled that "to be rich
is glorious", China's capitalist pioneers went to
work in a country dominated by public ownership
and shackled by Communist Party bureaucracy.
To attain the wealth that Deng now held up
for public admiration, many, if not most, flouted
the law. Smuggling, tax evasion, loan fraud and
triad (criminal) links were commonplace, as was
collusion with local government officials whose
palms were
greased to pave the new
capitalist road to success.
Now, with
China in February quietly marking the 10th
anniversary of Deng's death and Beijing's drive
against corruption taking center stage, those
pioneers may find that their chickens have come
home to roost.
A groundswell of resentment
against the newly wealthy has been building for
some time among ordinary citizens and party cadres
who feel the injustice of the country's growing
wealth gap and long for the social order of the
past. A survey by the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences last year found that nearly half of the
7,063 families polled thought the rich had
acquired their wealth illegally, and there is
growing public debate about whether they should be
called to account.
Several high-profile
tycoons have already been netted, and efforts to
bring others to justice are picking up steam,
leaving China's growing class of entrepreneurs in
a decidedly jittery state.
The illicit
practices of China's business pioneers are
commonly referred to as "original sin" in the
media. This suggests that succeeding generations
will continue to be tainted by their legacy of
corruption.
The question for state leaders
is whether to accept this fallen state of the past
as China moves toward a future based more on the
rule of law or to try to root out the sin at its
source. The sinners have even argued that their
misdeeds were a "necessary evil" to subvert the
old communist economic order, expediting the
capitalist reforms that the country increasingly
enjoys today.
Indeed, China's
transformation to a market economy has been
remarkable. Since Deng first lifted a ban on
private enterprise in 1978, the private sector has
expanded to account for roughly two-thirds of the
country's gross domestic product, according to
Huang Mengfu, vice chairman of the nation's top
political advisory group, the National Committee
of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference.
Huang told the state-run China
Daily in February that private enterprises
increased to 4.95 million last year, a 15% rise,
and now make up 57% of all enterprises in China.
The sector employs 64 million people, Huang said,
and is responsible for three-quarters of the jobs
in urban areas.
Tellingly, Huang also took
pains to calm the fears of high-flying business
people who could be brought down by the central
government's anti-corruption drive. "The notion of
'original sin' suggests that every single private
entrepreneur has a suspicious background," Huang
said. "That is unfair."
He was quick to
add, however, that those who have breached the law
would be punished.
But will Beijing really
go after all "original sinners"? Despite Huang's
assurances, that seems unlikely.
With the
Communist Party's 17th National Congress scheduled
to take place this autumn, state media have been
told to stress President Hu Jintao's vision of a
"harmonious society" and not to report on social
divisions and political mistakes of the past. Hu
is widely expected to establish himself as China's
supreme leader at the congress.
The
emphasis on harmony could be good news for China's
robber barons.
As with the government's
graft-busting drive against public officials,
there are simply too many wayward capitalists to
catch and too much scandal to reveal. Thus we can
expect to see the continued selective prosecution
of certain high-profile cases that are intended to
appease public resentment while also setting an
example of greater probity for business leaders in
the future.
In the public realm, last year
saw the sacking of Shanghai party secretary Chen
Liangyu on corruption charges related to the
misuse of 3.45 billion yuan (US$445 million) of
the city's pension fund. The nation's chief
statistician, Qiu Xiaohua, was also sacked and
arrested in connection with the pension-fund
scandal.
In another prominent case, Zheng
Xiaoyu, former head of the State Food and Drug
Administration, was recently detained on suspicion
of accepting bribes from Chinese pharmaceutical
companies in exchange for approving
drug-production licenses.
The private
sector has also seen its fair share of big fish
reeled in. The Shanghai pension probe snagged
former Fuxi Investment
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