China’s Corruption Problem: Much Bigger than Corruption
As a follow-up to our analysis on Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, we wanted to figure out where people direct blame for corruption. Corruption has long been a hotspot for weibo discussion, and unlike many other critical public agendas that might be censored, the issue on the table – anyone is free to make comments or to simply let off steam. Many influential scholars and “Big V” posters on weibo have tried to dig into the reasons behind the widespread corruption.
We found that conversation spikes generally happen around three types of events: when government officials make high-profile speeches, which often invite skeptical and sarcastic comments; when popular opinion leaders analyze the problem, and their views resonate with netizens; and lastly, when nasty corruption scandals get exposed online. Within our collection of Weibo posts running from late 2011 to September 2013, we found that people identified three fundamental causes for corruption: lack of rule of law and public supervision, dysfunction of the CCP, and the structure of bureaucracy.
Reasons for corruption according to Weibo user sentiment
Though public opinion within these three categories is pretty evenly split, it’s interesting to note that they are all systemic causes. After so many stories of corrupt officials, no one believes the problem can be attributed to poor moral quality of a few, or even a lot, of so-called bad apples.
And though Xi’s crackdown on banqueting and other perks was widely covered in the media, our analysis suggests that the Chinese people don’t place much stock in these surface-level measures. New anti-corruption measures must make some attempt at addressing structural causes, otherwise netizens are likely to see them as yet more Band-Aids.
By then taking a look at popular posts within each of the three categories, we were able to identify some corruption “hotspots.”
Lack of rule of law and public supervision
The absence of rule of law is consistently regarded as the biggest cause behind many of China’s social problems. Without judicial independence, strict law enforcement and necessary external supervisory mechanisms, the judiciary branch itself is often troubled by corruption, let alone able to effectively curb corruption in other areas.
While some rule-of-law discussions are triggered by sentencings of corrupt officials (particularly verdicts that are perceived as too soft), more often, they are provocative statements about judicial corruption itself:
The nature of law has degenerated into a protective umbrella for bigwigs and a tool to bully the average people. The underlying corruption has turned “equality before the law” into an ironic joke.
Nowadays, the law has degenerated to becoming slave to the ruling class. Only people with power can win in the field of judicial administration. The problem of judicial corruption accumulated over the years and cannot be resolved overnight. Personal rights protection is too hard. Instead, we should call for rule of law.
China’s most fundamental corruption is judicial corruption. If judicial system is not corrupt, how dare others be corrupt?
In February of 2012, there was a surge of posts around the news that the Vietnamese Prime Minister announced his intention to build a US-style nation, with judicial independence. He also proposed a “Sunshine Act” requiring government officials to disclose their personal assets.
Vietnam premier announced that Vietnam is to build an American style nation with independence of law. The highest court will hear the case of senior official’s corruption case that the Vietnam communist party is forbidden to intervene with.
This topic accounted for one of the biggest corruption-related spikes in our entire period. Though the asset disclosure topic is a sensitive one, the comparison with Vietnam points to citizens’ larger desire for a strong judiciary and overall greater transparency. These concerns should come as no surprise and pose no threat to Chinese policymakers. As we detailed in our China Policy Review column a couple of months ago, such measures will only increase China’s global competitive advantage. That this news gained so much traction on Weibo speaks to netizens’ disappointment and loss of face that a smaller, poorer country was on the path to adopting stronger anti-corruption measures before China.
Dysfunction of communist party
As former president Hu Jintao puts it, the bureaucratic corruption within the CCP is pushing people toward revolution. It was the most serious warning ever by a Communist leader, and got people’s attention – reblogs of Hu’s words make up a large percentage of posts discussing the dysfunction of the CCP. Other triggering events, such as official speeches on corruption, accumulate volume because netizens like to point out the discrepancy between the Party’s words and its actions:
It’s been proven that the most efficient and cheap anti-corruption measure is to open up to public opinion. But the CCP abandoned it and chose the useless inspection group. How bizarre it is! It’s believed that the CCP wants to take the initiative and option of anti-corruption: to win the support via anti-corruption and to win the support of corrupted officials via optional anti-corruption. All in all, it’s for strengthening its own power.
Those corrupted officials could be traced down by netizens far away, but the local discipline and anti-corruption bureaus failed to discover it. It’s a big irony to CCP’s tough stand on corruption.
An official from Central Discipline Inspection Commission boasted that there is no other party in the world that pays as high attention to anti-corruption as Chinese Communist Party. People were angry and refuted that it’s because Chinese communist party has the most serious corruption problem and it’s impossible for communist party to solve the problem by itself.
Some corruption scandals are discussed as CCP failures to exert control over its own lower ranks:
Grass-roots corruption is terrible and the central party has lost control of it. A head of village in Guangdong couldn’t even remember how many real estates he owned.
These posts demonstrate that discussions about corruption are undermining the legitimacy of CCP regime. In netizens’ eyes, the CCP indulges corruption and its internal discipline inspection system is useless. The pervasiveness of corruption within the party leads to charges of the CCP only paying lip service to combating corruption.
Structure of bureaucracy
Finally, the bureaucratic structure is the most consistent reason for corruption on Weibo. Even though netizens tend to talk more about rule of law or dysfunction of the CCP when major news stories happen (especially major scandals), a sizeable portion of all corruption-related incidents involve discussions of reforming China’s bureaucracy.
Daily Opinions by Volume
Top Corruption Events By Volume:
1/20/2012: Hu Jintao’s speech warning that corruption may be “fatal” to the CCP
2/24/12: General Liu Yuan gives a speech on corruption in the PLA; preeminent economist Wu Jinglian warns that China today is very similar to China in 1958, just before the Great Leap Forward
2/11/2012 – News that Vietnam will “build an American-style country”
11/18/2011: Peking University economist Zhou Qiren says corruption is not a moral issue of individuals but a systemic risk; compares the Chinese government to a company and Party leaders to bosses
These discussions, which tend to be led by influential and intellectual posters, reveal a sophisticated understanding of the systemic defects contributing to corruption. Delving into this category often turned up some lessons in history, as many professional and armchair historians alike blame China’s corruption on the roots of its bureaucratic system.
The well-known China historian John K. Fairbank discovered that the backwardness of the bureaucratic system and bureaucratic corruption were the underlying reasons for China’s failure in Opium War. From Emperor Kangxi, to Yongzheng to Qianlong, they all did one thing: to turn China’s bureaucratic system into a legal and organized corruption ring.
In fact, when netizens express doubt about the ability of the central inspection group to be tough on fighting corruption, they are referencing the fact that the inspection group operates out of a peculiar system that can be traced back to China’s ancient inspection policy.
In April, President Xi stated that China should “Draw lessons from history to enhance anti-corruption capability”, listing the lessons we should learn from history as: to be harsh on corrupt officials; to ensure the independence of the official supervision system by isolating anti-corruption officials; to make the misdeed of corrupted officials public, so as to ruin their names; to protect and reward whistleblowers. Yet it was exactly his call to history that provoked doubt:
It’s ridiculous that we try to crack down on corruption with old dead measures, instead of learning from the West by introducing democratic supervision, separation of powers, and multiparty competition.
If this view is a bit extreme, there are also voices advocating more moderate bureaucratic changes, such as well-known economist Wu Jinglian’s highly reblogged statement:
We need to figure out the systematic cause of rampant corruption, because only by rooting out the systematic cause can we put an end to it. Otherwise, even if we apply the strict laws of Hongwu Emperor, it won’t work. In fact, as early as 1988, the academics had reached the conclusion that the essential problem the dual system. When administrative power excessively intervenes in micro-economic activities, it creates broad and systematic rent-seeking opportunities.
In response to Wu, Ren Zhiqiang, a “Big V” on weibo, observed that the power to distribute resources is also the power to distribute corruption. Wu also outlined his own opinion on the three sources of corruption in China:
Corruption in our country takes many shapes and forms, but in terms of economic roots, there are mainly three: First, the use of administrative power to intervene in market activities, and bartering; Second is the use of property relations during the transition period to manipulate public property; Third is to use the market system in imperfect, irregular profiteering. All three types of corruption are about power
Still others blame the sheer size and complexity of China’s bureaucracy:
China’s financial resource is centralized in the central level, distributing down level by level. One more level means one more possibility of corruption. In the past thousand years, there were only three bureaucratic levels: central, provincial and county level. The ideal political reform should correct this mistake.
The disconnect between central and local governments was a common theme in many posts, with a related topic being the notoriously brutish local liaison offices in Beijing:
The fundamental cause of imbalance between the central and local governments. Many local governments set up liaison offices in Beijing, for many ministries have excessive power at their disposal.
Behind the local officials’ crazy corruption is the conflict between central power and local power. The local finance is in the red, the plunder of taxpayers goes wild.
The abundance and nuance of these bureaucracy-related posts make it clear that new anti-corruption measures must make some attempt at addressing structural causes. Otherwise, netizens are likely to see them as yet more Band-Aids. If current leaders do not make real efforts at reform, they themselves risk being judged by history. For example, Premier Wen said in his last press conference that he cared about political reform – and spoke about it as often as Xi speaks about graft – out of a sense of responsibility. Yet, pointing to his ten-year track record, during which corruption became worse, netizens blamed him all the more for not carrying out the reforms he promised.
All three corruption causes we’ve identified indicate netizens’ understanding of corruption as an entrenched symptom of greater ills. For many, corruption is inherently linked to the dual-track system, and any serious attempt at eradicating the problem will require political reform. Yet others point to the Maoist era (rightly or wrongly) as a time when corruption was under control. Liberal or conservative, one thing is clear: China’s corruption problem is much bigger than corruption.
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