Peer Reviewer 1:
The notebook on China is very well-written, and the importance of systems based on relationships (guanxi) is correctly highlighted. I have no additional comments.
Peer Reviewer 2:
I agree with the reporter's comments on how corruption works in China. I'm not as optimistic, however, about government efforts to deal with the problem. The party rarely focuses on senior officials and their families, who are the main causes of corruption. In cases where senior officials are punished for corruption, there is almost always a political aspect, as with the case of Chen Liangyu. No one in the top rank of the CPC has ever been punished for corruption without politics being the real reason. And because the government relies on lower level officials to keep itself in power, it rarely goes after these people. The 60,000-plus people who were punished were just people without the right connections. The reporter is thus correct when he or she says that corruption will not end until the one-party-rule ends.
Peer Reviewer 3:
The Reporters Notebook is factually accurate and fair, vividly describing how Chinese people are giving bribes in order to avoid the unfair treatment. It is an appalling sign of social decay that ordinary citizens are becoming numb towards the bribery behavior.
However, the reporter fails to indicate or suggest that those in power have made a bigger contribution towards this appalling situation. One example would clarify my point. The former CPC party secretary of Suihua City, Ma De, a key suspect in the biggest scandal of selling government and party positions since 1949, was sentenced in Beijing to death with a two-year reprieve on July 28th, 2005. It was reported that over 250 government and CPC cadres (50 percent of the total) in Suihua City, Helongjiang Province, have been involved in the scandal.
Another example suggests that most corrupt officials are getting promotions while the scale and intensity of their corruption keep increasing. Between 1999 and 2003, several party secretaries of Yulin City, Guangxi Autonomous Region, were charged with abuse of power and corruption and sentenced to jail, one after another. No wonder that people of Julin City have become accustomed to power-money exchange, saying to eat rice according to how many dishes on the table and to have something done according to how much money on the table .
In another instance, the repeated coalmine disasters have a lot to do with the party and government officials who allow them to operate even if they represent safety hazards, because many officials are shareholders in these coalmines. A coalmine owner typically has to spend around 5 million yuan (US$678,000) to obtain official stamps from about 10 government administrative agencies before the coalmine can begin production. Another way to get a quick start is to invite local officials to take shares in the coalmine. The Chinese government ordered those officials to withdraw their shares from coalmines by Oct. 20, 2005. Not surprisingly, by that date only 4,578 local CPC and government officials and state-owned enterprise leaders had withdrawn their shares from coalmines. Many officials refused to do so even if it meant they would lose their positions. Without tough safety measures imposed on coalmines, disasters kept happening. This year alone, 595 people died or went missing in 30 large coalmine disasters.
When talking about corruption scandals, the CPC ruling elite certainly know the picture better than the Chinese citizens, but they still continue to rely on centralized anti-corruption organs such as the Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission of the CPC and the Central Inspection. Teams were jointly dispatched by the CPC Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission and the Department of the Central Committee of the CPC to curb wide-spreading corruption. On May 31, 2007, the CPC ruling elite unveiled another traditional anti-corruption organ, the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention of Peoples Republic of China, according to the decision of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council. Few people believe that this newly established organ can do anything meaningful to prevent corruption from spreading. It seems that the day will come sooner rather than later that the CPC ruling elite would have to realize that these traditional internal anti-corruption tools are not enough to put corruption under control. They will have to accept the idea of market politics where citizens are free to compete for political offices while enjoying the constitutional freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.
Notes: 1. For details see Beijing Evening News, Aug. 28, 2005, Oriental Outlook, vol.33, Aug. 12, 2004, pp.22-4. 2. For more information, see Oriental Outlook, vol.4-5, Jan. 22-29, 2004, pp.36-9. 3. On Aug. 30, 2005, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Ministry of Supervision, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and State Administration of Work Safety jointly issued a circular demanding CPC cadres, government personnel and state enterprise leaders to withdraw their investment (excluding those shares bought at the stock exchanges) from coalmines by 22nd September 2005. 4. China Economic Times, Nov. 3, 2005, p.3. 5. China Economic Times, Sept. 23, 2005, p.6. 6. Oriental Morning Post, Dec. 20, 2007, p. A20.
Peer Reviewer 4:
The article tells the reader that (1) there is a lot of corruption in China; (2) the government/party are trying to do something; but (3) it may be that they (the government/party) are the source of the problem and/or it may be that the problem is intractable.
As the article notes, it is conventional wisdom among Chinese citizens that corruption is commonplace and excessive. I always marvel that my students seem to know or believe as much without being taught it in school. Indeed, I sometimes wonder if a serious study might show that the perception of corruption -- at least in some respects -- overstates the actuality.
However, the article does not, as the Chinese say, begin to go deeper into the questions that common wisdom in China suggests. These questions include:
1) What are the consequences of corruption? The article concludes by suggesting it makes the system work ("corruption works"). Does the author agree? What can he/she tell us about why and how it works (e.g. what is the effect on GDP and economic growth)?
2) Is everyone corrupt -- is it really true that money can make anything possible in China? The article suggests corruption is essential to dealings in China. Does this mean the large Western multinationals operating in China are necessarily corrupt because they routinely deal with the government in China -- and they obviously have money?
3) In focusing on corruption stories and suggesting that everyone must cheat to get ahead, the article neglects the ways -- critical and perhaps puzzling -- in which China does appear to be a merit system.
Most prominently, the article provides as a key example that if you want your child to go to a good school you should curry favor with admissions officers.
However, one of the most prominent features of life in China is the "gao kao" (big test), the single examination taken by high school seniors which determines their fate (or so they think, since the order of universities, at least at the top, is well established and assumed to be determinative of life outcomes).
But it is not always the case, as the article suggests, that families need to use relationships or money to get their kids into top schools. I know students who got into the very top schools in China (Peking and Tsinghua and Fudan) who did not have parents who knew how to curry favor. (Indeed, in the case of one research assistant, her parents had been laid off and she was the first member of the family to go to college.) I know students whose parents may have been important, but who spent endless time studying for the gao kai . These students, and untold others, did it by merit (if one assumes such tests are measures of merit, of course).
4) In suggesting that the current political system is the root of the problem, the article does not attend to the oft-discussed possibility that the problem is ages old, and that traditions like gift giving are deeply rooted.
5) The article does not address corruption in the sense of the debasement of traditional values by the "marketization" of China -- particularly in the universities where the focus on "branding" without evident regard to substance is prominent. For professors, university affiliations are too often hunting licenses to seek whatever money making opportunities the affiliation can command. Universities themselves forego teaching in favor of international conferences and journal publications that, without necessary regard to merit, will presumably enhance their rank within China and globally. Now, universities in search of money spawn moneymaking affiliates that charge high fees and can enroll the students of the rich with poor test scores.
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