Beijing Letter: China’s ‘House of Cards’ dishes the dirt

Overhead drone shots sweep over a convoy of police cars zipping through the city. A sweating, anxious cadre bedding his blonde Western mistress comes face-to-face with the anti-graft squad. There are factions everywhere – the "secretary clique" or the "political legal affairs clique" – echoing the political gangs that tussled with president Xi Jinping during his ascent to the pinnacle of the Communist Party. And there is cash – bundles of red 100 yuan banknotes – stashed in fridges, under mattresses, or behind false walls. The biggest cash denomination in China is the said 100 yuan (€13.70) bill, so corruption payments tend to come in large quantities. No handy €100 notes here.

In the Name of People is a 56-episode TV show produced by state television under the stewardship of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China; it has been watched by hundreds of millions since it debuted last month.

Political intrigue

The show has been called China's House of Cards and, while it has similarities to the US show with its hefty dose of political intrigue, its message is entirely supportive of Xi's crackdown on corruption.

The aim of the series is to show backing for the president, general secretary of the Communist Party and head of the military ahead of the 19th party congress in the autumn, a twice-a-decade event during which Xi will bed down his position, which is looking increasingly unassailable.

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Since he began his corruption campaign in 2012, taking aim at the powerful "tigers" of the elite and the "flies" at the bottom of the Communist Party, he has taken some scalps that make House of Cards look positively tame.

In April last year, Xi cited the American drama when he referred to corruption in the Party, saying China was not facing the kind of power struggles faced by the wily president Frank Underwood in the US show.

He took the opportunity to warn against “cabals and cliques” that threaten the security of the ruling Communist Party, and promised to bolster the fight against corruption.

Abuse of power

Along with Zhou Yongkang, now in jail but formerly a member of the party's powerful standing committee, and Ling Jihua, the biggest casualty of all has been Bo Xilai; the former party boss in Dalian and Chongqing is serving a life sentence for corruption and abuse of power, while his wife Gu Kailai is in jail for murder. Tellingly, one of the bad guys in In the Name of People is deputy state-level communist leader.

Generally anti-corruption movies have been banned by the government on the basis that they make the party look bad

The show is pacy, with an unusually large budget for a domestic production at 200 million yuan (€27 million). The series features big-name stars such as veterans Lu Yi and Zhang Fengyi and it is on every night until May 1st.

The Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, run by Xi’s powerful ally Wang Qishan, has had a couple of documentaries made about it, but generally anti-corruption movies have been banned by the government on the basis that they make the party look bad.

Many of the visual references in the show are familiar to Chinese viewers – the apartment full of cash is clearly a nod to Wei Pengyuan, a coal industry official who had more than 200 million yuan stashed in his Beijing flat. He was given a suspended death penalty last year when found guilty of graft.

“I think it’s quite fair, government officials genuinely talk like that,” wrote Yu Yan on a fan site.

Anti-corruption novelists

Yu Xinyan wrote after watching an initial seven episodes: “The story was excellent and the actors performed well. All the officials had different goals,” while Waidaodao said: “It is funny to see how all the officials are in some way related – college classmates, father and son, student and teacher.”

The main villain is a mild-mannered cadre who eats noodles and lives an unflashy life, despite taking millions in bribes

The script is by Zhou Meisen, one of China’s most famous anti-corruption novelists – it is a kind of sub-genre – who likes to highlight the hypocrisy of the corrupt cadres who constantly refer to how they are working “for the people” as they try to rip off public funds.

The main villain is a mild-mannered cadre who eats noodles and lives an unflashy life, despite taking millions in bribes. Zhou has written of how he wants to explore the motivation of such characters.

"Chinese people like to say 'Don't forget old friends when you become rich and powerful'. This is an important view in our traditional culture. However, this translates to 'When a man gets to the top, all his friends and relations get there with him'," Zhou said in an interview in the China Daily.