China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign: Understanding the Rationale

 

 

 

From the mid 1990s to the early 2000s there was a general optimism among the Chinese people that despite all the challenges, the average Chinese was becoming better off. While the rich were getting richer, the poor were improving their lot also. This optimism, however, seems to have disappeared in recent years with large numbers of Chinese, including wealthy citizens leaving the country. Almost half of China’s millionaires are reportedly planning to leave China.

 

This explains President Xi’s China Dream slogan – an attempt to bring back the spirit of optimism of the past in which all Chinese can benefit from the country’s rise. President Xi has adopted a totally different style of leadership from his predecessors, reaching out to the people and giving an image of acting naturally. He frequents simple restaurants and was even reported to have jumped into a Beijing taxi incognito. This is also part of the attempt to address the legitimacy crisis. For years the Chinese people have perceived their leaders as aloof and distant, having little contact with their reality.

 

The Fallacy of Democracy

There is also a tendency by foreign observers to see Chinese leaders as conniving Machiavellians merely interested in keeping themselves in power. Chinese leaders, like many American or European leaders, are also patriots who love their nation and want it to prosper.

 

Many are skeptical of the ability of the Chinese government to build a society based on the rule of law due to the undemocratic nature of the communist regime. They argue that only Western liberal democracies can effectively fight corruption. This is a fallacy clearly demonstrated by the example of Singapore which is constantly ranked among the top five least corrupt countries in the world. The UAE and Qatar’s absolutist monarchies, who are ranked rather high in transparency indexes, further underscore this fallacy.

 

The Chinese leadership strongly believes that it can establish a system based on the rule of law without necessarily having to democratise. The more fundamental question is whether President Xi and his allies will be able to control corruption without undermining the entrenched interests of powerful factions within the CCP that threaten the survival of the party itself.

 

 

Loro Horta is a senior diplomat of Timor Leste based in Beijing and an Adjunct Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. The views expressed here are strictly his own.