How bad is corruption in China ? (Temprarily Closed)

A recent report said corruption in China is overwhelmingly graft, and while bad, it's not the worst form of corruption. The reason is Communist Party officials take tips for doing their jobs, but they still perform their duties diligently. That's why China has good schools, roads, bridges, dams, airports, railways, harbors, pipelines, and such. Other nations have traditional corruption, where government officials take money but do harm to national interests. Prime example is Philippines under Marcos where some large scale projects were setup to fail and leave the government in debt, resulting in the public footing the bill, but with nothing to show for it. And then there's Japan's structural corruption where unelected bureaucrats hold the levers of power, and induce greater inefficiencies in the system than the public gets in goods and services.

Corruption is a big problem everywhere in the world, but there's bad, and then there's BAD. While still unacceptable, graft isn't the worse form of corruption, and those that point fingers at China should open their eyes and look at around the world, including themselves.

Another difference is that if the top leadership wants to , they usually succeeds in sending corrupt officials behind bars, and that is done with efficiency too.

At the root of all corruption is this question: how do you prevent people from "gaming" the system?

Really, the only difference between Chinese corruption and, for example, US corruption, are the rules of the game. In China, you get someone in power to directly take care of things for you. In the US, you get legislators to pass laws that give you advantages. The objective is still the same, which is to take advantage of the system for your own benefit.

The answer is that you can't. Not really. Trying to stamp out corruption is like trying to stamp out adultery. You can put as much legal and moral penalty on it as you want, you'll just drive the behavior deeper underground. Both are products of human nature.

The real issue isn't really corruption, it's: "why can that guy get away with doing this but I can't? "

Obviously people with more power can better leverage the system. OJ Simpson can get away with murder, Joe Smith can't.

So the real question is, how do we spread power around more evenly?

There are two ways to do this. You can reduce the amount of power people can get, or you can give more power to everyone.

The former is what the founding fathers of the USA envisioned. This is done by creating a set of rules that prevent people from doing a number of things.

The latter method, giving more power to everyone, is basically what Anarchists espouse. Anarchy is a society where everyone is free to do what they want. After all, you can't have corruption if you don't have rules, right?

It's always a trade-off somewhere, more diffused power may mean slower response, less effective execution and less consistent policy setting.

If your aim is fast growth, you need high concentration of power to direct effectively, then once growth levels you can maybe start diffuse the power to stop them from being misused. The thing is, like entropy, power once diffused is harder to get back, and you get more and more inefficiency and chaos in the system. That's basically how all empires falter, either violently through a misuse of concentrated power, or slowly through degeneration because of ineffective direction of weakened power. Often it is a combination of both.

(What does Mao mean by perpetual revolution, I think it is to shake up the system every once in a while to re-concentrate power, less everyone gets lazy and complacent.)

This is why CCP is very reluctant to release power because they know this is a one way irreversible path and they know that effective direction of power is one of their strongest advantages compared to other countries.

In foreign policy, the US president have strong concentration of power, so he/she can set effective and forceful courses as long as he/she is a strong president, although that does not prevent him from making mistake (Bush and Obama being kind of pointing towards either extreme). But internally within the US the power concentration is a lot weaker, so the government is less efficient. This may also mean that it is easier to solve US's problem by 'throwing them outside the border' as opposed to trying to root out the cause from within. So maybe that is why Trumps' rhetoric are the way they are.

Actually everyone have similar rhetoric comes election time, but Trumps still stands out.

Blackstone said:

A recent report said corruption in China is overwhelmingly graft, and while bad, it's not the worst form of corruption. The reason is Communist Party officials take tips for doing their jobs, but they still perform their duties diligently. That's why China has good schools, roads, bridges, dams, airports, railways, harbors, pipelines, and such. Other nations have traditional corruption, where government officials take money but do harm to national interests. Prime example is Philippines under Marcos where some large scale projects were setup to fail and leave the government in debt, resulting in the public footing the bill, but with nothing to show for it. And then there's Japan's structural corruption where unelected bureaucrats hold the levers of power, and induce greater inefficiencies in the system than the public gets in goods and services.

Corruption is a big problem everywhere in the world, but there's bad, and then there's BAD. While still unacceptable, graft isn't the worse form of corruption, and those that point fingers at China should open their eyes and look at around the world, including themselves.

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I have to add another form of corruption that is not as well known or practiced - legalized corruption if you will - wherein elected leaders enact laws to pay themselves vast sums of remuneration. If only their performance reflects their princely salaries.

t2contra said:

I have to add another form of corruption that is not as well known or practiced - legalized corruption if you will - wherein elected leaders enact laws to pay themselves vast sums of remuneration. If only their performance reflects their princely salaries.

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Yes you're right, and then there's the special interests and lobbying groups in US and other democratic republics using legal means to essentially vote money/benefits from the public treasury to themeselves. That has generated all sorts of unsavory dealings and corruption.

Blackstone said:

Yes you're right, and then there's the special interests and lobbying groups in US and other democratic republics using legal means to essentially vote money/benefits from the public treasury to themeselves. That has generated all sorts of unsavory dealings and corruption.

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So...who's gonna stop them since the public can't vote them out?

I think most of the corruption in China that most people face is paying a sum of money to officials or a group to speed on bureaucratic process. I think this is decreasing since China is revamping some of the process.

Abuse of power usually does not affect too many people, but when you are the target, it will be the end of the world for you. Examples are Land Development (as you can see in recent news in some case) or force shutting down a business when you do not cooperate with them. Some officials even manage to delete your wukou (basically like your social security account) if you do not cooperate with them. This is like loosing your citizenship and your identification, and it is close to impossible to re-obtain it. (Unless you have money)

IMO the worst is the medical system. It is well known to the Chinese to not contract any serious sickness or getting injured as the medical bill is quite high (usually bankrupting a regular family). Now is getting even worse, since government is introducing a small social safety net to cover portion of the medication. Hospitals are charging a higher price

ahho said:

Now is getting even worse, since government is introducing a small social safety net to cover portion of the medication. Hospitals are charging a higher price

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Ha! Same in the US and my country.

ahho said:

... ... Now is getting even worse, since government is introducing a small social safety net to cover portion of the medication. Hospitals are charging a higher price

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IMHO, ... ...

#1) Prevention is the key, if you are sick, then it is way too late.

For example: In general, the swimming OILY & meaty dishes of Chinese Food are asking for health disaster to happen.
People in general, especially male, ... ... just do not eat enough green raw or steamed veggies.
Stir Frying veggies is bad.

#2) The solution for price gouging is quite simple and affordable really.

Force all Medicine Manufacturers and all Government and Private Hospitals to openly and publicly broadcast their transaction pricing on the national website for everyone to see.

Openly & publicly broadcast on the national website of the car and house ownership according to individual names.

Raise the Doctor Visit Fees in the hospital for those who own any asset more than 100,000 RMB, and scale the doctor visit fees up accordingly.