CHINA: Corruption Charges Can Be Convenient

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Sep 28 2006 (IPS) - As a new generation of Chinese communist party leaders consolidates its grip over the world’s fastest growing economy, fighting corruption has become the new ideological weapon wielded in power struggles within its governing ranks.

With the Chinese public taking to consumption and wealth as the new political mantras, rivals of top communist leaders are no longer purged on ideological grounds like in past decades. These days, they are ostracised because they have benefited too much and too ostentatiously from the boom and roused public ire.

But while the new purges are void of ideological drama, in essence they are little different from the power struggles that marked the communist party’s history in the radical 1950s and 1960s. And the public cannot be fooled with that.

When communist party chief Hu Jintao fired the party boss of Shanghai this week for corruption and other “baneful crimes”, few were misled as to the real reasons for his downfall.

“Hu is weeding out his rivals one by one,” retired party cadre Lin Kejia told IPS. “It has taken him four years to get to the people in Shanghai but now he has finally done it.”

The glitzy financial capital of China has always remained the power-base of former party leader Jiang Zemin. Before retiring from all his posts as party boss, president and military chief, Jiang had managed to stack the political desk, appointing dozens of loyal cadres and army officers to top-line positions.

Over the last two years Hu, who took over the reins of the party leadership in 2002, has slowly but methodically managed to replace Jiang’s protégés with his own, often from within his personal power base at the Communist Party Youth League.

Last year a reshuffle of the State Council, or China’s cabinet, allowed Hu to appoint allies to the ministry of labour and social security and the ministry of justice. Later that year he moved on to replace Hong Kong’s unpopular chief executive Tung Chee-Hwa, also regarded as one of Jiang’s men.

These moves have enabled Hu to portray his government as being more responsive to public opinion. The replacement of Hong Kong’s Tung for example, was rewarded with an immediate upturn in the former British colony.

Yet, these changes of personnel have also allowed Hu to begin stamping his own mark on the policies and the day-to-day governance of the ruling communist party. While his predecessor Jiang promoted outright economic growth and development, Hu emphasises helping those who have fallen behind during the years of economic reform.

One of Hu’s main themes of governance has become the creation of a “harmonious society”, one that addresses social justice and sustainable development, ranging from farmers’ low incomes to unemployment, environmental protection and corruption.

Both President Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao had pledged more money for the countryside, including direct subsidies for grain producers and increased investment for rural infrastructure, health care and education.

In practical terms this means that the central government has sought to squeeze more fiscal revenue from local governments in order to pick up the tab. Beijing has also tried to boost its authority over the provinces, which suffer particularly strongly from corruption. The old regime provincial governors and party chiefs had built up a strong network of power and patronage in their regions, using China’s market reforms to reward followers.

Communist party watchers here believe that purged Shanghai party boss, Chen Liangyu, has clashed with Hu over economic policy, with Chen pressing to continue the run away growth that has brought boom time to his fief.

Chen’s fiefdom, Shanghai, is also the one bastion of Jiang’s influence that had remained largely unscathed in Hu’s power reshuffles -until earlier this year when party investigators and auditors descended on the financial hub and began a massive probe into the city’s alleged misuse of pension funds.

“Everybody in the party has been waiting to see whether Hu would dare shake Shanghai,” said a Chinese political journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Shanghai has been regarded as the ultimate test of Hu’s political skills – will he or will he not manage to consolidate his power”.

Chen was fired this week for corruption discovered in the two-month probe into misuse of Shanghai’s 1.2 billion US dollar pension fund. “Chen’s punishment fully demonstrates the central (party) committee’ resolution to build a clean party and to fight corruption, ” the state news agency Xinhua said in a dispatch.

Chen, who sat on the 24-man all-powerful politburo of the party, is the highest ranking party official to be purged in more than a decade. Investigators have warned that corruption probe could net other senior party cadres.

“With the deepening of the investigation, other people might be involved,” Gan Yisheng, general secretary of the communist party’s discipline inspection commission said at a press briefing in Beijing, Tuesday.

Other high-profile political crackdowns have taken place in recent months, all ostensibly on charges of corruption. In Beijing, Liu Zhihua, vice mayor in charge of Olympics-related projects, was sacked for alleged corruption and “bad morals”. In August, Tianjin’s chief-prosecutor, was dismissed for “severe breach of discipline”. And in Shanghai two months ago, the head of the city’s social security fund was sacked for importer lending of social security funds.

All firings have been made public and the propaganda machine has trumpeted the government’s determination to stamp out rampant official corruption. Public anger over corruption and growing income disparity, especially between urban and rural areas, have become main sources of social instability in the country.

But while seemingly responding to public demands to deal with corrupt officials, the party leadership has also managed to reassert its authority with wayward localities and prepare for more political manoeuvring before the 17th party congress in a year’s time when a new politburo will be named.

Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po newspaper, which is known as Beijing’s mouthpiece in the territory, said Beijing needed to eliminate local opposition to its more restrained approach to economic growth. It predicted more reshuffles and possible purges down the road.