"In India, corruption is under the table.
In China, it is over the table, while in Indonesia
corruption includes the table," it has been said.
People might quibble about the relative placement
of Asia's three largest countries. Depending on
direct evidence of paying off government
officials, and the nationalities of those making
the payments, the temptation to reclassify stands
quite broad.
Whichever way you wish to
read the quote, what remains undeniable is that
corruption is more firmly rooted in Asian culture
than is commonly acknowledged. Western views of
Asia are misshapen by their experiences in places
like Singapore and Hong Kong, and all too often
ignore the realities of doing business
elsewhere. I will look here
at the three countries mentioned in the above
quote, in the order they are mentioned.
In
India corruption is almost entirely a post-'70s
phenomenon, with the country's politicians at the
epicenter. While bureaucrats are also corrupt,
they have derived strength from their political
masters - indeed those working for relatively
honest politicians are demonstrably less corrupt
than the average, as well as being unhappy,
presumably.
History is not kind to either
the Congress party or its nemesis, the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). The Congress that exists today
is the creation of the late prime minister
Indira Gandhi in the 1960s. Even as Indira Gandhi
herself may not have taken bribes (opinion in
Delhi is mixed on the subject), she was
megalomaniacal enough to have interfered in the
bureaucratic machinery all too often, a process
that peaked with her declaration of a state of
emergency in the mid-'70s.
In turn, the
centralization of power created an army of
sycophants who promised access to Gandhi, usually
for a monetary consideration, but also sometimes
through the creation of jobs in favored electoral
constituencies. The sycophants were tolerated by
Gandhi as they served her political purpose of
splitting the opposition parties, the success of
which can be measured by the short-tenured
government that defeated her by a landslide in
1977. In the '80s, the process intensified within
the Congress, with the Bofors scandal causing the
government of Rajiv Gandhi to collapse at the
hustings in 1989.
Meanwhile, the
opposition fared little better. The BJP, espousing
Hindu nationalism, had always been funded by small
businesses, which hoped to derive some sops in the
form of tax collection gigs. The rest of the
political spectrum is quite diverse, and I believe
that its very plurality is a cause for corruption
increasing. Anti-incumbent voting is rampant in
both federal and state elections, causing many
political parties to accelerate their collection
of bribes rather than take a longer-term view.
Second, the composition of political
parties is ever-changing. For example, the success
of caste-based political parties in the north has
resulted in a substantial increase in corruption,
presumably to pay for mounting election expenses.
Corruption is presented by such parties as a
redistribution of income from upper castes to
elected members of the lower castes, although I
very much doubt that much munificence to
caste-mates results from such bribes.
As
with Indian reforms, the outlook for legislative
tightening in this area appears quite limited. For
one thing, no political party in power now is
clean, which means that any effort to rein in
corruption would face internal opposition. As a
wag once observed, no one in the Congress would
propose the death penalty for corruption, as that
would mean hanging their members of parliament.
Indians do not have a choice when it comes
to corruption as most of their political parties
(with the notable exception of the communists)
offer simply varying levels of corruption. The
choice is therefore to vote for the communists and
risk economic stagnation like Bengal, or vote for
another party and hope that the benefits of growth
exceed the cost of corruption.
Return
of the eunuchs If India's plural
democracy has pushed corruption ahead, China's
one-party state has not done much better. Ever since
Deng Xiaoping issued his "to get rich is
glorious" edict, the party has seized on many
opportunities to make money. Whether it is the
People's Liberation Army (PLA), whose suite of
businesses rivaled any Western conglomerate (until
president Jiang Zemin cracked down late in the
'90s) or local party officials whose fingers appear
in every urban development, taxpayers' money has
been illegally channeled into the hands of
politically connected individuals.
Additionally, the secondary costs of
corruption such as bad loans, cannot be calculated
at the present juncture. This is best illustrated
by looking at the history of some of the country's
high-flying bankers and businessmen, many of whom
have come to grief as reports of their wealth
spread. The golden rule in China is to avoid being
named, which would usually cause the party to
investigate and quickly judge the official. One
thing I have noticed though is that higher-ranking
officials usually demand more long-term benefits
such as joint venture projects and education or
job advancement opportunities for their children
as compared with lower-ranking officials who are
mainly preoccupied with cash.
Culturally,
the Taoist framework of self-maximization has much
to do with corruption in China. In contrast with
the Confucian principles that call for officials
to act for the common good, Taoism recognizes the
need and right of individuals to act for their own
benefit. This allows Chinese people to accept the
need for officials to enrich themselves, and,
indeed, many see the richer as more successful.
This is why corruption is quite open and direct;
you can almost predict what any particular
activity will cost.
Another feature that merits
attention is the changing qualifications for
becoming an official in China. Aspiring civil servants
used to undergo a series of grueling examinations;
passing them guaranteed jobs in government.
Under that system, the most corrupt officials
were usually palace eunuchs, whose resurgence
from time to time has spelt the end of many
regimes. With no central tests (which were only
scrapped in the early 1900s), today's officials
derive much of their power from party politics,
which is really another way of saying palace
intrigues. In effect, today's politics in
China are more representative of those practiced
by the eunuchs, which is why I fear that the
corruption epidemic will only intensify in years
to come.
Wayang puppets Javanese
kings always ruled through a combination of
intrigue, superstition and selective rewards. This
placed them on the same level as a dalang
(puppeteer) in a wayang kulit (shadow
puppet show), carefully controlling the movements
of various puppets and introducing surprise
changes to the script depending on the audience
reaction. The last of the great "dalangs"
was Suharto, whose use of his country's talented
Chinese community reflected a genuine marriage of
convenience.
In return for effective
management of resources which gave them money,
Chinese businessmen supported Suharto's family and
addressed their financial needs. Their lack of a
power base locally meant that they could never
stray too far from the family. This is the context
in which the proverb opening this article was
made.
The arrival of democracy has
resulted in greater corruption as each successive
ruler has sought to cement his or her grip on the
populace. While the people were promised less
concentration of wealth to undo some of the ills
of the Suharto era, this has been more difficult
to implement due to the changing legal and
political environment.
Meanwhile, the
stagnation of investment has meant greater
pressure on the government even though Indonesia,
being a resource-rich country, has much to offer
in the current environment of soaring commodity
prices.
With the businessmen of old
refusing to cede control and a whole host of new
players from the West and the Middle East arriving
at the country's doorsteps, corruption has become
endemic. The search of the next dalang is
on. In the meantime, budding businessmen will have
to support (pay) many contenders. At stake are not
just the country's resources, but its entire
policy framework as well. In this respect,
Indonesia represents the worst of the Chinese and
Indian experience in terms of corruption.
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