Fighting corruption while still developing is premature
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2014 12:36 pmhttp://www.chinasmack.com/2012/stories/ ... ption.html
People should permit a moderate [or appropriate] amount of corruption in China
It was announced yesterday that former Railway Minister and Party Secretary Liu Zhijun was fired, the issues of his suspected crimes to dealt by judicial authorities in accordance with the law. This piece of news once again touched the public’s most sensitive nerve, that dealing with corruption. From a national perspective, there is indeed continuous news of corrupt officials being sacked, which does give people the feeling that corruption is “unending/overwhelming”. They aren’t catching/arresting less, it’s that you can never catch them all [never finish catching them all]. Just what is going on?
China obviously has a high incidence of corruption, and the conditions for completely eliminating corruption do not exist at present. Some people say, as long as we have “democracy”, the problem of corruption can be easily solved. However, this kind of view is naive. Asia has many “democratic countries”, such as Indonesia, the Philippines, India, etc. where corruption are all much more severe than China. But China may very likely be the Asian country with the most pronounced sense of “resentment towards corruption”.
This is related to China’s “serve the people!” official political morals having deeply been engrained in the people’s heart throughout society. However, the reality is that the market economy has attacked its practicality/feasibility, resulting in an government officials who half-heartedly observe it or have even betrayed it constantly slipping through various crack in the system. China is a country that has been deeply penetrated by globalization and the high standards of integrity of developed countries is already known by the Chinese public, and with information coming from different periods and different circumstances being forcible stuffed into China’s sphere of public opinion, bitterness and consternation can find no relief.
Corruption in any country is unable to be permanently controlled/cured, so the key is to control what the degree that the people will permit/allow. However, to do this is particularly difficult for China.
Singapore and China’s Hong Kong institute a policy of high pay to discourage corruption. Many American political candidates are wealthy, and normally when someone becomes a government official there, they accumulate renown and connections. After office, they can use then various “revolving doors” to change all they have accumulated into financial return. However, these options and possibilities are not available in China.
Giving government officials large salaries is something Chinese public opinion cannot accept. Allowing government officials to step down and use their influence and connections to make big money is something the system does not allow. Allowing the wealthy to become government officials is something that people find even more unpalatable. The legal salaries of China’s government officials is very low, and the compensation for officials of some places is often realized through “unwritten rules”.
All of Chinese society now has some “unwritten rules”. In industries that involve the public welfare such as doctors and teachers, “unwritten rules” have also become popular. Many people’s statutory income isn’t high, but they have “gray income”.
What are the boundaries for “unwritten rules”? This isn’t clear. This is also one of the reason for why there are relatively many corruption cases now, with some even being “cases of a community of corruption”. Amongst the people, there is the popular saying that “what is commonplace amongst the people cannot be punished by the law”, and the moment government officials believe this saying while believing “others are the same as me”, then he is already in danger [of becoming corrupt].
Those who engage in corruption must be strictly investigated, and not to be tolerated, as this would greatly increase the risk and cost of corruption, creating the requisite deterrent effect. The government must make the reduction of corruption the biggest objective of their governance.
The people must resolutely increase supervision through public opinion, pushing the government to fight corruption. However, the people must also reasonably understand the reality and objective fact that China is unable at its present stage to thoroughly suppress the corruption, and not sink the entire country into despair.
