Exorbitant highway tolls are often charged in China. These tolls are a sign that the exploitation of China’s economy by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials may be running out of road.
Shi Jianfeng makes a living carrying sand in two trucks that use the toll roads in Henan Province. On Dec. 21, 2010, the Pingdingshan Intermediate Court of Henan Province sentenced him to life in prison, plus a $2 million yuan fine (approximately US$304,000), for evading 3.68 million yuan (approximately US$559,000) in highway tolls over an eight-month period.
The prosecutor also charged him with having illegally bought two fake military license plates for his two trucks. In China, military vehicles are exempt from tolls.
The sentencing of Shi Jianfeng caused outrage in the media and on the Internet.
Some netizens calculated what would be required to rack up 3.68 million yuan in tolls. According to the official data, the toll fee is 0.45 yuan per kilometer (six-tenths of a mile).
At that rate, the two trucks would need to travel 8.2 million kilometers to owe 3.68 million yuan. If each truck were to drive 12 hours per day, then the speed of each truck would need to average 1,400 kilometers per hour (868 mph) in order to cover 8.2 million kilometers in eight months.
The actual toll, however, is not .45 yuan per kilometer, but .11 yuan per kilometer, according to the assistant manager of the Pingdingshan Branch of Henan Zhongyuan Highway Ltd. (HZHL), which manages the highway. At the toll rate of .11 yuan per kilometer, the trucks would have had to travel at 5,600 kilometers per hour (3,472 mph), several times the speed of a commercial jet.
A toll of .55 yuan per kilometer is charged for a truck 100 percent over the allowed weight, but even at this rate, any trucks would have to travel at jet speed.
The court documents showed that Shi Jianfeng earned 200,000 yuan (US$30,400) from his business, about one-eighteenth the cost of the tolls.
On Jan. 15, the case took a sharp turn, as Shi Junfeng, the younger brother of Shi Jianfeng, turned himself in to the police. He said that he couldn’t let his brother take the blame for him. He also showed the media contracts relating to the tolls, including one he had signed with a Detachment of the Armed Police, according to which he would pay a 1.2 million yuan (US$182,000) annual fee for the military license plates for four vehicles.
The court reacted very quickly. The next day, Jan. 16, the High Court of Henan Province and the Pingdingshan Intermediate Court held a joint press conference. The case was declared a mistrial, and the court suggested the prosecutor drop the charges. Four judges, including the judge who tried the case, were disciplined.
For Shi Jianfeng, maybe this is a good sign. At least he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life in jail. For Shi Junfeng, things are not so clear—he is still being held. But the rapid reversal by the court in Shi Jianfeng’s case left the public wondering about questions that have not been answered.
The court had accused Shi Jianfeng of using fake military plates. Yet Shi Junfeng had been willing to pay 1.2 million yuan for plates that could cause him big trouble. Obviously, the Shi brothers considered the military license plates to be real.
In China, the Armed Police is considered part of the military because it’s under the Central Military Commission. In the court-sentencing document, the headquarters of the Armed Police of Henan Province was said to have denied the ownership of the trucks and the license plates.
However, most people suspected that the license plates were real. Someone in the Armed Police is most likely stealing and selling the license plates, with or without knowledge of higher-ups.
The corruption of the military is no secret in China. In order to take advantage of the privileges given the military, some criminals use fake military IDs, fake military vehicles, and fake military license plates. Those IDs and license plates are not all fake. Some of them are real, but are not used by the military.
In 2008, it was reported that the head of the military transportation division of the logistics department of the Beijing Military Region Air Force sold many vehicle license plates for his personal interest.
When the Shi brothers brought the documents and plates to the highway toll plaza to apply for an exemption, they were not given any trouble. And they passed several inspections without difficulty. Besides, a 1.2 million yuan annual license fee is much cheaper than 3.68 million yuan for only eight months.
Everyone in China knows that nobody can make money or even survive by paying the tolls. That’s why, even though the public knows that Shi Jianfeng violated the law, most people were sympathetic to him.
No one has explained how the tolls were calculated and who gets the money. Since most of the information will be considered a “state secret,” the public probably will never know. The fantastic jet speed required of the trucks will be kept a mystery for sure.
But something can be learned. The toll authority, HZHL is a limited corporation. It has five owners, four of them are provincial government-owned enterprises, and one is an enterprise owned by the Ministry of Transport.
HZHL is not the only one to get money. In the contracts that Shi Junfeng showed the media, he agreed to pay two directors at one toll plaza 5,000 yuan (US$760) per month. The directors denied the accusation. HZHL said an internal investigation did not find any inappropriate behavior.
China’s economic reform has experienced several stages. In the early 1980s, the Party encouraged people to start their own businesses. All the policies were made to benefit those with political power, such as the princelings, but ordinary people could still make a fortune by hard work combined with some luck.
In the 1990s, the Party leaders and their family members took advantage of the reform of the state-owned enterprises and seized the state properties that had been accumulated in the previous several decades.
In the last 10 years, those who have power have focused on selling land and real estate as the last frontier for making big fortunes.
The highway toll case shows those in power have reached a dead end.
There are two types of gangsters, those who offer protection and those who rob. The gangsters who collect protection money from stores let the stores do business as usual. Robbers take everything and even kill the store owner.
In a limited population and area, robbers will soon find that there is nothing left for them to take. In China, it’s called killing the hen to get the egg. The Henan government, as well as the governments in other provinces, has been doing just that. There is no next stage.
The trial of Shi Jianfeng and its rapid dismissal could only have occurred because of the nature of the Chinese legal system. The police, the prosecutors, the courts, and the state are all on the same side and are all the tools of the Communist Party. They share the same interests and the same source of power.
Trials are just for show. The signal of the Shi Jianfeng trial was clear: Whoever wants to escape robbery in the name of the state will be mercilessly punished.
The fast dismissal of Shi’s case means that someone wants the case out of the public eye. There are at least two areas the public will not be allowed to dig into: the unbelievably high tolls collected by the state and the military privileges, including the selling of vehicle license plates. The judges who were disciplined are just scapegoats.
Nobody plays by the rules. The party, the state, and ordinary people may be understood as all being in a huge ship. Everyone knows the ship is sinking or is going to sink. Everyone wants to grab as much money as possible as quickly as possible to save oneself. Those with power have more advantages and grab more, but that only causes the ship to sink faster. The country is falling apart.
Shi Jianfeng makes a living carrying sand in two trucks that use the toll roads in Henan Province. On Dec. 21, 2010, the Pingdingshan Intermediate Court of Henan Province sentenced him to life in prison, plus a $2 million yuan fine (approximately US$304,000), for evading 3.68 million yuan (approximately US$559,000) in highway tolls over an eight-month period.
The prosecutor also charged him with having illegally bought two fake military license plates for his two trucks. In China, military vehicles are exempt from tolls.
The sentencing of Shi Jianfeng caused outrage in the media and on the Internet.
Some netizens calculated what would be required to rack up 3.68 million yuan in tolls. According to the official data, the toll fee is 0.45 yuan per kilometer (six-tenths of a mile).
At that rate, the two trucks would need to travel 8.2 million kilometers to owe 3.68 million yuan. If each truck were to drive 12 hours per day, then the speed of each truck would need to average 1,400 kilometers per hour (868 mph) in order to cover 8.2 million kilometers in eight months.
The actual toll, however, is not .45 yuan per kilometer, but .11 yuan per kilometer, according to the assistant manager of the Pingdingshan Branch of Henan Zhongyuan Highway Ltd. (HZHL), which manages the highway. At the toll rate of .11 yuan per kilometer, the trucks would have had to travel at 5,600 kilometers per hour (3,472 mph), several times the speed of a commercial jet.
A toll of .55 yuan per kilometer is charged for a truck 100 percent over the allowed weight, but even at this rate, any trucks would have to travel at jet speed.
The court documents showed that Shi Jianfeng earned 200,000 yuan (US$30,400) from his business, about one-eighteenth the cost of the tolls.
Court Reverses Itself
On Jan. 15, the case took a sharp turn, as Shi Junfeng, the younger brother of Shi Jianfeng, turned himself in to the police. He said that he couldn’t let his brother take the blame for him. He also showed the media contracts relating to the tolls, including one he had signed with a Detachment of the Armed Police, according to which he would pay a 1.2 million yuan (US$182,000) annual fee for the military license plates for four vehicles.
The court reacted very quickly. The next day, Jan. 16, the High Court of Henan Province and the Pingdingshan Intermediate Court held a joint press conference. The case was declared a mistrial, and the court suggested the prosecutor drop the charges. Four judges, including the judge who tried the case, were disciplined.
For Shi Jianfeng, maybe this is a good sign. At least he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life in jail. For Shi Junfeng, things are not so clear—he is still being held. But the rapid reversal by the court in Shi Jianfeng’s case left the public wondering about questions that have not been answered.
License Plates
The court had accused Shi Jianfeng of using fake military plates. Yet Shi Junfeng had been willing to pay 1.2 million yuan for plates that could cause him big trouble. Obviously, the Shi brothers considered the military license plates to be real.
In China, the Armed Police is considered part of the military because it’s under the Central Military Commission. In the court-sentencing document, the headquarters of the Armed Police of Henan Province was said to have denied the ownership of the trucks and the license plates.
However, most people suspected that the license plates were real. Someone in the Armed Police is most likely stealing and selling the license plates, with or without knowledge of higher-ups.
The corruption of the military is no secret in China. In order to take advantage of the privileges given the military, some criminals use fake military IDs, fake military vehicles, and fake military license plates. Those IDs and license plates are not all fake. Some of them are real, but are not used by the military.
In 2008, it was reported that the head of the military transportation division of the logistics department of the Beijing Military Region Air Force sold many vehicle license plates for his personal interest.
When the Shi brothers brought the documents and plates to the highway toll plaza to apply for an exemption, they were not given any trouble. And they passed several inspections without difficulty. Besides, a 1.2 million yuan annual license fee is much cheaper than 3.68 million yuan for only eight months.
Everyone in China knows that nobody can make money or even survive by paying the tolls. That’s why, even though the public knows that Shi Jianfeng violated the law, most people were sympathetic to him.
Next: Robbery as Economic Policy
Robbery as Economic Policy
No one has explained how the tolls were calculated and who gets the money. Since most of the information will be considered a “state secret,” the public probably will never know. The fantastic jet speed required of the trucks will be kept a mystery for sure.
But something can be learned. The toll authority, HZHL is a limited corporation. It has five owners, four of them are provincial government-owned enterprises, and one is an enterprise owned by the Ministry of Transport.
HZHL is not the only one to get money. In the contracts that Shi Junfeng showed the media, he agreed to pay two directors at one toll plaza 5,000 yuan (US$760) per month. The directors denied the accusation. HZHL said an internal investigation did not find any inappropriate behavior.
China’s economic reform has experienced several stages. In the early 1980s, the Party encouraged people to start their own businesses. All the policies were made to benefit those with political power, such as the princelings, but ordinary people could still make a fortune by hard work combined with some luck.
In the 1990s, the Party leaders and their family members took advantage of the reform of the state-owned enterprises and seized the state properties that had been accumulated in the previous several decades.
In the last 10 years, those who have power have focused on selling land and real estate as the last frontier for making big fortunes.
The highway toll case shows those in power have reached a dead end.
There are two types of gangsters, those who offer protection and those who rob. The gangsters who collect protection money from stores let the stores do business as usual. Robbers take everything and even kill the store owner.
In a limited population and area, robbers will soon find that there is nothing left for them to take. In China, it’s called killing the hen to get the egg. The Henan government, as well as the governments in other provinces, has been doing just that. There is no next stage.
Keeping Things Hidden
The trial of Shi Jianfeng and its rapid dismissal could only have occurred because of the nature of the Chinese legal system. The police, the prosecutors, the courts, and the state are all on the same side and are all the tools of the Communist Party. They share the same interests and the same source of power.
Trials are just for show. The signal of the Shi Jianfeng trial was clear: Whoever wants to escape robbery in the name of the state will be mercilessly punished.
The fast dismissal of Shi’s case means that someone wants the case out of the public eye. There are at least two areas the public will not be allowed to dig into: the unbelievably high tolls collected by the state and the military privileges, including the selling of vehicle license plates. The judges who were disciplined are just scapegoats.
Nobody plays by the rules. The party, the state, and ordinary people may be understood as all being in a huge ship. Everyone knows the ship is sinking or is going to sink. Everyone wants to grab as much money as possible as quickly as possible to save oneself. Those with power have more advantages and grab more, but that only causes the ship to sink faster. The country is falling apart.
