The China Teaching Web

If there is one thing that the Communist Party cannot be accused of, it is inefficiency. Just 41 days after the deadly earthquake in China’s Sichuan province, CNN reports that  the anti-corruption arm of the Chinese government has announced that 12 officials have been fired “for dereliction of duty and misuse of earthquake relief.” Just 12, you ask? According to the report, almost 1000 allegations of corruption were investigated and at least 30 officials were punished to a lesser degree. Meanwhile, the People’s Daily Online, one of the Chinese government’s mouthpieces, has also reported that “the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Sunday revealed its five-year plan for the Party’s prevention and punishment of corruption.” Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of this new plan, is that “the media will be encouraged to provide legal and constructive criticizing reports with professional ethics and Party officials shall deal with those reports in a proper way. ”

My initial reaction to these strong anti-corruption measures by the CCP is “Hats off to Beijing!” It would appear that the CCP is taking these widespread allegations, which have existed from almost Day 1, very seriously. My second reaction, however, is a little more cautious. It is incredible to me that the Chinese government was able to investigate over 1000 allegations of corruptions in less than 2 months. Such a process would have taken at least 6 months if not a entire year to be completed in the United States. Hopefully, in its new found zeal to fight corruption in China, the government has allowed justice to a run its due course. would be a travesty if an official’s entire career was ruined just based on hearsay and confusion. Afterall, there is no mention in the reports of any court trials. It appears that the punishments were meted out directly by the government.

Nevertheless, it is a pleasant surprise to see the Chinese government’s willingness to combat corruption in a country that is in dire need of such measures. As I wrote about in a post entitled Where is the China Earthquake Donation Money Going?, rampant corruption in China leads to the loss of millions of dollars every year that are earmarked from Beijing for important projects throughout the country. This corruption, especially at the local levels of government, also makes it difficult for Chinese citizens to go through the legal avenues of applying for construction licenses or doing other government related business. It is to be hoped that news of this swift justice in the wake of the earthquake, coupled with the CCP’s five-year anti-corruption plan will reasonate throughout China and force officials to ‘clean their act.’

Some will undoubtedly accuse me of being naive and overly optimistic. I am certainly not naive. I realize that this will not be the first time that the Chinese government has attempted to fightcorruption in China. But I do wear a badge of optimism proudly in that I believe that important changes are occurring in China. While there is understandably very little open criticism of the government in China, the CCP realizes that behind closed doors, Chinese citizens are becoming more and more discontent with the widespread local corruption, especially when it hampers their ability to perform daily business and improve their lives.  The process of dealing with corruption in China will not be an overnight occurrence but if the government’s swift actions in the aftermath of the earthquake are any indication, corrupt officials in China will have much to worry about in the coming months and years.

** Corrections contained in this post: Reports has originally indicated that close to 1000 Chinese officials were punished but since then it has been revealed that there were over a 1000 allegations of corruption with 43 officials who were punished to varying degrees. This post has been updated to reflect those changes.