A township head in Xinjiang Province took the lead by disclosing his own property in response to the calls of the anti-corruption campaign, but was then ordered to leave his post by his superiors for “demagogy.” Some officials challenged the general public to publish their own properties first, while others argued that the officials’ financial status is “privacy.” Some Beijing officials oppose the proposal claiming “stability overrides everything else,” which seems to suggest that the disclosure of officials’ real property status will shake social stability.
The officials’ responses are not surprising at all. According to an internal investigation conducted by several authorized institutions in Beijing, among the over 3,000 billionaires in China, over 2,900 are children of high-ranking CCP cadres, accounting for more than 90 percent. In China, 0.4 percent of the population possesses 70 percent of the national wealth. Last year, the gap between the rich and the poor in China reached a most serious level. The income of the highest 10 percent of the population is more than 12 times that of the lowest 10 percent, more than doubling the income inequality of the year 2000. High officials’ children, wives and even mistresses began to accumulate wealth in the 1990’s by investing in financial market and then the real estate market.
In the “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics,” tycoons emerge from trading political power. In other words, the typical Chinese tycoons are a product of tradable monopolized power.
Renowned Chinese economist He Qinglian, who resides in the United States, pointed out, “Real estate is the ‘lead industry’ of China’s economy. While propping up half of local finances, it has also deprived approximately 78 million peasants of their land through government expropriation.” He also observes that the Chinese regime has already become a “self-interested political group.” This political group’s purpose is not to rule the country, but to exchange political power for wealth, and then use wealth to maintain its political power. Once one understands this, one would not be surprised to see tens of thousands of university graduates competing for ten “civil servant” positions.
In many areas of China, certain official positions are blatantly priced, such as a number of bureau chiefs at the county level, or a number of heads of the public security bureau, etc. Some higher departments are more covert; they usually proceed to amass their wealth by indirect or roundabout means. For example, helping superiors’ children and relatives to get richer can achieve the desired effect. In mainland China, as long as one has power, one can get money, sex and even control other people’s lives. The outcomes of the Deng Yujiao case of the waitress who stabbed a local official to death after he sexually assaulted her, the Shishou case and more and more forced house demolitions and land dispute cases are all examples of this.
Foreign enterprises have quickly become part of the corrupt system. Children, wives and mistresses of various levels of cadres can enter foreign-funded enterprises regardless of their knowledge or ability, and take on roles such as managing directors and presidents. They are basically highly paid, but idle.
Companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan normally do not use the roundabout ways to accumulate wealth; they directly provide overseas bank accounts to the favored officials. For commercial corporations, this method of favoritism is simple and convenient, and it is easy for them to control cost. Hence, Hong Kong economist Steven Cheun praised China as having “the best system in the world.”
How would CCP officials be willing to expose such unfairness under the bright daylight? After all, dark tricks cannot stand exposure to light.
Read the original Chinese article.
Published with permission from New Epoch Weekly
