Trial reveals vast spread and depth of China’s corruption
Li Qiang (First Left, front) is seen at the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People's Court in Chongqing, China on Oct. 26, 2009.
The problem for Beijing is that across the length and breadth of the country, there are hundreds of influential Wen Qiangs still ruling with impunity, and tens of thousands of Huang Gobis still waiting for their day in court.
Li Qiang was, up until July 21, one of the most influential political figures in Chongqing, one of China’s fastest growing cities and its biggest municipality. A high-ranking official in the ruling Communist Party, Li was also the head of a business conglomerate and a billionaire. He controlled vast swathes of the city’s real estate, owned dozens of casinos and even ran the public transportation system.
So unchallenged was Li’s influence on this city that on his command, the entire public transportation system came to a grinding halt on one day, when he ordered 8,000 taxis to stay off the roads and stopped the buses from running. In Chongqing, Li’s word, ably enforced by his notorious network of thugs and gangsters, was the law.
His words tore apart Huang Gobi’s life. She watched in horror one evening as a group of thugs wielding machetes entered her home, sliced up her husband in front of her eyes, and assaulted her. Her crime: resisting the Chongqing real estate mafia’s attempt to take her land. Her troubles didn’t end there. When Huang approached the police, and then the courts, she discovered her attackers’ accomplices ruled at every level of officialdom. The police turned her away, and threatened to send back the thugs. The courts wouldn’t hear her case.
The “godfather” of the Chongqing fiefdom who encouraged the rise of figures like Li was Wen Qiang, a former police commissioner and head of Chongqing’s judicial bureau. Wen, who also stood trial last week, was accused of giving umbrella protection to dozens of gangs who ran the real estate mafia, brothels, and casinos. Among the gang-lords is Xie Caiping, known as the city’s “godmother” and Wen’s sister-in-law. So brazen was Xie, a former official in the taxation bureau, that she ran a casino and brothel on the city’s main street — it stood right opposite the Chongqing People’s Court. The lurid details of Xie’s life have been splashed across the front pages of local newspapers. She operated 80 illegal casinos, brothels, and drug-running outlets.
When arrested, she told a local paper: “My brother is God and he is the law. What do I need to fear about?”
Many scholars here trace the origins of the problem to the blurring of political and business interests, which began when market reforms were launched three decades ago. Even as money poured into an economy dominated by state-owned enterprises, regulations and laws remained outdated and opaque. Chongqing, in China’s west, is in many ways a microcosm of the larger changes that market reforms brought to China’s political economy, and also the challenges posed to the country’s institutions.
Chongqing’s ills are but an extreme manifestation of a disease that is widespread in China. The past three decades since the reforms of 1978 have seen central regulation, and central influence, retreat.
This has paved the way for local officials to expand their power, so much so that in Chongqing, it became difficult “to differentiate between criminals and government officials,” said Professor Pu. So deep is the corruption rot that scholars have argued in recent years it has become the single biggest threat to the ruling Communist Party’s legitimacy.
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Li Qiang (First Left, front) is seen at the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People's Court in Chongqing, China on Oct. 26, 2009.
The problem for Beijing is that across the length and breadth of the country, there are hundreds of influential Wen Qiangs still ruling with impunity, and tens of thousands of Huang Gobis still waiting for their day in court.
Li Qiang was, up until July 21, one of the most influential political figures in Chongqing, one of China’s fastest growing cities and its biggest municipality. A high-ranking official in the ruling Communist Party, Li was also the head of a business conglomerate and a billionaire. He controlled vast swathes of the city’s real estate, owned dozens of casinos and even ran the public transportation system.
So unchallenged was Li’s influence on this city that on his command, the entire public transportation system came to a grinding halt on one day, when he ordered 8,000 taxis to stay off the roads and stopped the buses from running. In Chongqing, Li’s word, ably enforced by his notorious network of thugs and gangsters, was the law.
His words tore apart Huang Gobi’s life. She watched in horror one evening as a group of thugs wielding machetes entered her home, sliced up her husband in front of her eyes, and assaulted her. Her crime: resisting the Chongqing real estate mafia’s attempt to take her land. Her troubles didn’t end there. When Huang approached the police, and then the courts, she discovered her attackers’ accomplices ruled at every level of officialdom. The police turned her away, and threatened to send back the thugs. The courts wouldn’t hear her case.
The “godfather” of the Chongqing fiefdom who encouraged the rise of figures like Li was Wen Qiang, a former police commissioner and head of Chongqing’s judicial bureau. Wen, who also stood trial last week, was accused of giving umbrella protection to dozens of gangs who ran the real estate mafia, brothels, and casinos. Among the gang-lords is Xie Caiping, known as the city’s “godmother” and Wen’s sister-in-law. So brazen was Xie, a former official in the taxation bureau, that she ran a casino and brothel on the city’s main street — it stood right opposite the Chongqing People’s Court. The lurid details of Xie’s life have been splashed across the front pages of local newspapers. She operated 80 illegal casinos, brothels, and drug-running outlets.
When arrested, she told a local paper: “My brother is God and he is the law. What do I need to fear about?”
Many scholars here trace the origins of the problem to the blurring of political and business interests, which began when market reforms were launched three decades ago. Even as money poured into an economy dominated by state-owned enterprises, regulations and laws remained outdated and opaque. Chongqing, in China’s west, is in many ways a microcosm of the larger changes that market reforms brought to China’s political economy, and also the challenges posed to the country’s institutions.
Chongqing’s ills are but an extreme manifestation of a disease that is widespread in China. The past three decades since the reforms of 1978 have seen central regulation, and central influence, retreat.
This has paved the way for local officials to expand their power, so much so that in Chongqing, it became difficult “to differentiate between criminals and government officials,” said Professor Pu. So deep is the corruption rot that scholars have argued in recent years it has become the single biggest threat to the ruling Communist Party’s legitimacy.
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