FINANCIAL TIMES
3-1-17

The political price of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign

Beijing’s claims of ‘huge progress’ are clearly overblown

Jamil Anderlini

As Chinese President Xi Jinping enters his fifth year in power there is no question that the world’s most populous nation is a more repressive and authoritarian place than before his reign began.

For nearly four decades before Mr Xi assumed the leadership, there was an implicit understanding between the Chinese people and their rulers that China was moving towards a more liberal system.

As recently as five years ago, senior Communist cadres would still quietly assure western interlocutors that their ultimate goal was a gradual and peaceful transition to a democratic China. Mr Xi has changed all that. He has repeatedly rejected liberal democracy and western political thought (with the exception of Marxism) and instead vowed to usher in a “great rejuvenation” that harks back centuries to when the Chinese emperor was master of “all under heaven”. For the first time in 40 years, nobody in China can argue that the system is liberalising.

While arresting lawyers, social workers and labour activists, and crushing any hint of dissent, Mr Xi has also made anti-corruption and “discipline inspection” a centrepiece of his administration. The anti-corruption campaign has been wildly popular with the masses but much less so among military and civilian bureaucrats who are the most important constituents in any authoritarian system.

The campaign has had a superficial impact, with lower-level officials far less willing to flaunt their ill-gotten gains. This has served as a counterweight to heightened repression as ordinary people accept more surveillance and less freedom of speech in exchange for the promise of cleaner governance.

But Beijing’s claims of “huge progress” are clearly overblown. Businesspeople complain that their bribery costs have actually risen along with the greater risks facing corrupt officials, many of whom now demand backhanders paid in foreign currency directly into offshore bank accounts.

Some entrepreneurs have concocted elaborate schemes to funnel cash to the right officials. One businessman in a provincial city hired an American professional card shark to play private high-stakes games with party bigwigs and intentionally lose to certain players.

This served the double purpose of funnelling cash to the appropriate bureaucrat while also giving them the pleasure and “face” of beating a world-class poker player. The fact the businessman was not even present during these games gave everyone an extra layer of protection.

The obstacles to rooting out corruption in China are partly systemic. Official salaries and benefits are minuscule, especially compared with the power that representatives of the state wield over all aspects of the economy. Anti-corruption authorities are an integral part of the party machinery, which removes any incentive to conduct independent graft investigations. But there are also deeper historical and cultural factors at work.

“The mountains are high and the emperor is far away” (thiên cao hoàng đế viễn) is an ancient saying that remains popular to this day. Through millennia of dynastic cycles, central control over the Chinese empire has often been weak. The emperor’s mandarins, with the help of the garrison, were supposed to impose order and uphold the laws in the provinces — but more often than not they served as corrupt symbols of the predatory state, bending the laws and tax codes to suit their own interests.

The empire was frequently conquered and controlled by foreign invaders and this added to the alienation of the subjugated majority Han populace. In the face of a weak but predatory state, Chinese society organised itself around the clan unit, putting loyalty to this above all else, including laws emanating from the Forbidden City.

This is how to understand the roots of corruption in China. Loyalty to family and clan has always overridden loyalty to the state, and breaking the letter of the law is a trifling matter compared with letting down your extended network.

Tackling such deeply ingrained cultural attitudes is a long-term project that ultimately requires powerful independent institutions.

Without them, Mr Xi must rely on purges that risk eroding support among his most important constituents. Both the anti-corruption campaign and the crackdown on civil society are intended to ensure the longevity of the Communist regime, which believes it alone is capable of guaranteeing the long-term stability and prosperity of China.

But if the anti-corruption campaign goes too far in alienating the bureaucrats who make up that regime, then continued repression could backfire and trigger the very unravelling that Mr Xi is trying to forestall.