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| March 15, 2000 | atimes.com | ||
|  | China One head rolling won't stop the rot, say Beijingers By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - Derided as ''machines that raise their hands'', delegates to China's parliament always approve decisions unanimously, except when the issue of corruption is raised. In fact, the voting on the reports by the Supreme People's Court has become an annual ritual in which delegates express disagreement with its assessment of corruption, to the embarrassment of the communist leadership. Delegates to the annual National People's Congress (NPC) tend to disagree strongly whenever the country's top judge and the chief procurator deliver their reports on crime and corruption. Two years ago, just 55 percent of the delegates approved the report, expressing their disgust with corruption and widespread abuse of power. So when Beijing announced the execution of a corrupt high-ranking government and party official last Wednesday, many people believed the timing of the punishment was not coincidental. The execution was seen as a move to get a higher level of support from the NPC delegates when the chief procurator and chief judge deliver their annual reports. Former Jiangxi province vice-governor Hu Changqing was the most senior government official executed for corruption since the founding of communist China in 1949. The execution took place in the provincial capital of Nanchang. Hu was convicted of bribery and possession of property from unidentified sources, said a dispatch by the state-run Xinhua News Agency. It said that during the four-year period when Hu served as the province's vice-governor, he abused his power by arranging ''illicit profits for some people'', and received 5.44 million yuan ($661,000) in bribes. ''For such a flagrant criminal, only the death penalty is sufficient to uphold national law, satisfy popular indignation, rectify Party work ethics and fight against corruption,'' a commentary in the People's Daily, the communist party flagship, said on March 9. Calling Hu a ''people's enemy'', the paper tried to justify at length the swift and severe penalty which has raised many eyebrows. After the city court ordered the death sentence on February 15, Hu appealed to the Higher People's Court of Jiangxi province. And after the provincial court upheld the verdict on March 1, Hu's case was then submitted to the Supreme People's Court. The final verdict came down on March 7th and Hu was executed the next day. ''The severe punishment of Hu Changqing according to law serves as a caution to the Party's leading members, a warning to those who have still failed to correct their wrongdoings, and encouragement for the general public,'' asserted the People's Daily. ''It smacks of a deliberate political move,'' argued a Western diplomat in Beijing. ''They couldn't possibly investigate and verify such a complicated case just in three weeks. They say he was paid off on 87 separate occasions but just to listen to all the testimonies to those cases, in a democratic country it will take at least a year.'' Ordinary Beijingers believed Hu was singled out as a victim to show the communist leadership's determination to fight corruption that is eroding the mainstays of the Party's power. ''Hu probably didn't have strong backing,'' said Lin Ruixue, a middle-aged company employee, ''that is why they could lay hands on him and produce an example that fighting graft is not just empty talk.'' To convince the public that corruption will be severely dealt with is not easy for the government whose image was tarnished recently by the uncovering of a multi-billion dollar smuggling and graft racket in the coastal city of Xiamen. The Xiamen smuggling ring is said to have involved telecommunication equipment, crude oil, rubber, cars and cigarettes - smuggled goods with a total value of $10 billion. While the investigation of the case has not concluded, the top leadership has moved to impose a news blackout and make sure no top-ranking officials are implicated. Chinese sources have said that among the suspects is Lin Youfang, the wife of Jia Qinglin, the Communist Party secretary of Beijing, who is widely known as President Jiang Zemin's protege. As rumors spread that Jia Qinglin and his wife would be spared graft investigations to avoid roiling the upper echelons of the Party, the government began to lose ground in its fight to curb corruption. ''They couldn't punish the party boss of Beijing or his wife but they had to punish somebody to save their prestige,'' argued the diplomat. In his government report delivered to the National People's Congress last week, Premier Zhu Rongji had for the first time included a lengthy section devoted to cleaning up government. ''Fighting corruption is still a tough task,'' he said. ''We still fall short of what central authorities require of us and what the people expect of us.'' Yet although Zhu threatened tough punishment for those caught, he offered no fresh ideas on improving the political system other than more regulations and campaigns. In fact, Zhu made no mention of political reform in his 16,000-word report. (Inter Press Service) | |||||||||
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