China's Growing Corruption

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 11-year sentence the Chinese authorities gave to Liu Xiaobo, China’s only true public intellectual, wondering why it is that Beijing should be so frightened of one man who dares to speak truth to power. For more than 20 years, Liu, a bookish literary critic, has spoken out for democratic reforms and rule of law in China, writing essays and scripting petitions to the authorities demanding an end to one-party rule and the release of political prisoners. China’s consumption-obsessed citizens pay little notice. So why does Beijing care?

Then I read the recent Wall Street Journal report of a nationwide crackdown on organized crime, and it dawned on me that from the leadership’s perspective, China is just this side of “luan,” or chaos. Indeed, with no rule of law—after all, how can you have rule of law if there is no independent judiciary and the Communist Party is unassailable?—corruption is out of control. So much so that criminal networks of Party bosses, gangsters, murderers and sheisters have organized to run prostitution, loan-sharking, bribery, and tax evasion conspiracies. Protests are on the rise. The leaders may feel they are an inch away from losing control of the country.

But what the leaders don’t seem to understand is that crackdowns and slogans won’t ever solve their problems. The Chinese middle class are increasingly educated; they will start wanting more than just money. Beijing Film Academy professor Cui Weiping has been collecting commentary on the Liu case from intellectuals in China, and the consensus is resounding: the sentence defies the Chinese constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech. Without political reform, China is doomed to growing corruption, which has already eroded social morality, and ultimately will destabilize the country. I understand China’s focus on economic development and the “greater good.” But at the dawn of a new decade, the question is, without the other part—individual rights and rule of law—the country may get rich, but at what cost?