China’s Anti-Corruption Fight Exposes Lack of Official “Courage,” Critics Say - China Real Time Report - WSJ
- November 5, 2014, 3:02 PM HKT
China’s Anti-Corruption Fight Exposes Lack of Official “Courage,” Critics Say
By Russell Leigh Moses
A Chinese street vendor holds up souvenirs adorned with pictures of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his predecessors in Tiananmen Square of Beijing.
European Pressphoto Agency
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s on-going crusade to clean up the Communist Party appears to be expanding, and unearthing
new instances of graft. This past weekend, anti-corruption czar
Wang Qishan vowed to use new methods to continue the campaign against cadres who, he says, “seem to have forgotten that they are party members, didn’t learn discipline, are apt to ignore regulations and act shamelessly.”
But according to commentaries in the state-controlled media, Xi’s ongoing and apparently escalating crusade to punish corruption is exposing something else that all too many Chinese officials seem to be lacking: the commitment—the “courage” as
some critiques have put it
–to do the right sort of work.
That lack of nerve is described as a persistent problem in Sichuan, a province where anti-corruption inspectors have discovered
a multitude of malfeasance and a power base of ex-security chief Zhou Yongkang, who’s also
under investigation. It’s likely not
the only place where graft has been thriving.
According to
one lengthy account of the corruption raging in Sichuan, “the main problem found was one of governance—that some leading cadres operated at the expense of the public interest, trading jobs and promotion for money, and colluding to form a conveyor belt of interests, in which economic interests became political interests, whereby officials intervened in policy decisions on natural resources, water, electricity, land sales and government procurement, in ways that would benefit themselves and their associates.” Party officials, according to this article, “used festivals, weddings and funerals to accept bribes, and they dispensed bonuses, vehicles, and other subsidies to well-connected friends and families.”
A major source of those problems wasn’t immorality, according to the report, but that “cadres lack the will and enthusiasm to reform.” Too many officials, the article says, are “lazy, loose, preferring to float along and be dragged by others, unwilling to experiment with the new.”
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That there’s a connection between corruption and
a lack of commitment is also argued in a recent essay on the complications of training officials in the party’s theoretical magazine
Seeking Truth. Articles and commentaries in
Seeking Truth are often used to air concerns in the upper echelons of the party about current practices; the content is often a clue to larger obstacles that the Chinese leadership faces.
The commentary, which looks at Sichuan but speaks generally, notes that “while there must be selfless dedication and a strong sense of responsibility on the part of officials, we must focus on developing cadres who are not afraid of difficulties, not afraid of pressure or fear of failure–pioneers, who dare to stand up at the critical moment to take the initiative to accept new challenges and find new ways to take the lead.”
Evidently, there are far more of the other kind of cadre in the Communist Party these days.
That unwillingness to embrace change may be due to the anxiety that hangs over many cadres given Xi’s anti-corruption crusade. No official can be sure who’s next to be accused—one’s political patron, one’s pal, or oneself. That’s led to many
Chinese officials either laying low or fleeing potential investigation. Many are also reluctant to carry out changes out of concern they might go badly and end up exposing them to scrutiny and reprimand.
For decades, the practice of Chinese politics has rested on the assumption that appointments and promotions are less about performance in the field than they are about connections—and those connections rest on payments and favors, which are now being pursued and prosecuted as “corruption”. Yet aside from admonitions from Beijing for officials to behave better and the odd nod towards the need for officials to
“reach out to the grassroots”, instructions are at best vague as to how cadres would actually do those things when the political system that sustains corruption remains largely intact.
Consequently, there’s little reason for officials to find the fortitude to break their reliance on politics as it’s practiced currently. Indeed, the anti-corruption campaign actually works to cement those connections further, as officials seek protection against Beijing’s crusade. The more Beijing escalates the crackdown, the more entrenched those existing political ties become.
The Xi leadership’s drive to clean up corruption in the party is clearly meant to clear the way for officials who are more resilient and responsive to a still-skeptical public. Xi’s crusade isn’t aimed at restructuring China’s political system; in that way, it’s been less destabilizing so far. But the strategy won’t have much long-term success if it ends up inhibiting the very cadres and qualities that it’s been trying to foster.
Russell Leigh Moses is the Dean of Academics and Faculty at The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system.
