Corruption in China
January 19, 2012
According to a report recently published by an official state journal, there has been a growing trend of corruption in private and public sectors in China in recent years. Last year, 202 cases involving financial crimes committed by high-ranking employees at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms were identified, rising from 155 in 2010 and 95 the year previous to that.
The average amount taken by corrupt officials last year was 20.7 million yuan ($3.2 million), excluding the biggest case which involved over 790 million yuan. Compared with 2010, the average amount of money stolen or embezzled doubled in only 12 months. Around a quarter of the 88 SOE officials probed held positions of high office.
Chinese lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said the increasing incidence of corruption has coincided with a reduction in the number of death sentences dished out to white collar criminals. "While based on law the maximum penalty for those found guilty of appropriating 100,000 yuan or more is capital punishment, in reality no certain standard can be found," Liu told Deutsche Welle.
"For example, even though the corruption case of Chen Tonghai, the CEO of Sinopec Group (the top state-owned enterprise), involved as much as nearly 200 million yuan, he wasn’t sentenced to death.
“However, the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, took bribes of around 6 million yuan and he was sentenced to death," said Liu, adding that the laws upon which verdicts in corruption case are often based are ambiguous and equivocal.
Despite the exorbitant sums involved last year, no SOE officials were executed for corruption, compared with two executions in 2010.
Party rules
Although China has been considering dropping the death penalty for economic crimes as part of legal reforms, Borge Bakken, a criminology expert with the University of Hong Kong, told Deutsche Welle that the growing trend of corruption in China is not related to punishment.
"China is one of the two countries that has the death penalty for economic crimes. It has no deterrent effect on corruption. It's about the opportunities, a lack of legal structures and a lack of control mechanisms."
Bakken also noted the lack of accountability in Chinese enterprises. "The rules and regulations surrounding you are sometimes so dubious that as an entrepreneur, you're not really sure if the transaction is corrupt or if it's an economic crime or not."
What the final verdict depends on, according to Bakken, is not the amount of money taken away in bribes but how much political power the accused possesses. "The party is watching itself and is all powerful. If you have political backing, you can be exempted from punishment for any corrupt activities," said Bakken, pointing out that the lack of an independent judiciary meant the courts did not function as they should.
"They have a political legal committee that stands over the judiciary at every corner. If you don’t have any political support, you can be executed for corruption."
Author: Miriam Wong
Editor: Darren Mara