“RESOLUTELY PUNISHING and effectively preventing corruption relates to whether the people support you or not and to the party’s life-and-death survival.” By any standard this is a strong statement of why China’s communist party believes action must be taken against corruption, probably the most serious source of public resentment and social unrest the one-party state faces over the next five years.
Its plan to combat the problem is timely, following numerous scandals over land use and shocking evidence that the schools destroyed in the Sichuan earthquake, in which many children died, were built without proper reinforcements. Whether the plan will be effective is more questionable, given how extensive it acknowledges the problem to be, but there is no denying the determined tone with which it is addressed. And it should be recognised that three of the preventive measures proposed – greater media scrutiny, a more independent judiciary and independent consultations – push out the boundaries of previous action tolerated by the party.
Premier Wen Jiabao told the recent party congress he is determined to give the struggle against corruption top priority. It has become much more prevalent in a period of explosive economic growth stimulated by massive privatisation of state resources. Party control of local administration and planning agencies, for example, has made land use corruption a central reality for the tens of millions exposed to rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. Farmers and local communities protesting over inadequate compensation for seizure of their land and public resources often run up against blatant corruption among officialdom. It has taken all the party’s efforts to prevent these protests undermining its role.
Greater media scrutiny will help to rein in corruption, if local party leaderships allow it happen. The extensive censorship and media guidance apparatus built into one-party rule will be directly tested by greater media independence. The same applies to judicial action. The extent of corruption in China is closely related to the weak rule of law; culturally it should not be confused with ancient Confucian norms of guanxi – social networking and gift-giving – but increasingly it will fall to the courts to make that distinction. More widespread public consultation would reinforce these tendencies.
These mechanisms are likely to be in tension with the party’s internal action against its cadres found guilty of corruption. That is the price of communist party rule.