Tiger fight
PRC Chairman Xi Jinping has turned the fight against corruption into an important part of the strategy of the “Chinese dream of a great national revival.” This is evidenced by the holding in October of this year of the Plenum of the CPC Central Committee on "the main issues of the comprehensive promotion of the rule of law."
The struggle of law against iniquity is as old as the struggle between good and evil, light against darkness. For centuries and millennia, this topic has been a concern for philosophers of different civilizations, including Chinese thinkers and rulers. In the writings of Confucius (551-479 BC), one can find arguments about Junzi, the “noble husband”, who by his adherence to high moral principles in self-governance, family and state, resist syozhen, “vile man”.
As in other countries, the Chinese "vile people" often rose high on the steps of power. During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the eunuch He Shen became the favorite of the emperor Qianlong. He traded positions and audiences with the Son of Heaven, took bribes for any reason. Only after the death of the emperor in 1799, a high-ranking bribe taker was exposed and executed. The property confiscated to the treasury turned out to be more precious than all the values of the imperial court! He Shen was not the only syozhen - “kickbacks” to officials during government work, such as the construction of dams and irrigation canals, reached 50 – 60%. General corruption was one of the reasons for the weakening of the Qing dynasty, its shameful defeat in the Opium Wars with England and France (1840-1842 and 1856-1860), with Japan (1894-1895) and other clashes with the imperialist powers. The corruption of the government of the Kuomintang party predetermined the defeat in the struggle for power with the Gunchandan party (Chinese Communist Party) in the course of the three decades of confrontation.
Not surprisingly, the Chinese Communists have given paramount importance to the fight against corruption in their ranks. To one degree or another, Mao Zedong’s political campaigns were anti-corruption, especially the “cultural revolution”, when the unwanted leaders were handled by the Red Guards under the pretext of “crimes against the masses”, including actual or fictional corruption. The rejection of “barracks communism” after Mao’s death in 1976 and the implementation of the policy of “reforms and openness” from 1978 led to the introduction of market economy rules, albeit with “Chinese characteristics”. Deng Xiaoping gave up the slogan “Get Rich!” And his call was followed not only by hard workers and honest entrepreneurs, but also by “foul men”, including with party tickets. Corruption on all floors of the party and the state took on frightening proportions, began to cause outrage in society.
In 1985, students in Hainan Island and in the city of Guangzhou protested against rising prices, corruption, and bureaucracy. They were supported by students in Beijing, Xi'an and Chengdu. The party authorities, along with tough measures to restore order in the campuses, were forced to campaign against "vicious style among cadre workers." With Deng Xiaoping's blessing, the death penalty was restored and the demonstration executions of corrupt officials began. By the spring of 1989, the formation of bureaucratic capitalism even more frank forms. Inflation accelerated, the gap in the incomes of the upper and lower strata began to cause mass indignation. Permissiveness of the nouveau riche and the "new aristocra “From the authorities, they tuned up the rebels, who still remembered the times of the“ cultural revolution ”, the pogroms of city committees and district committees, the“ silly caps ”on their heads yesterday, all-powerful commanders, public executions. And in May 1989, riots broke out on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, supported by youth in other cities. The tragic outcome came in early June. The parties managed to keep the authorities on hold, but the “work on the mistakes” and the resignations of high-ranking leaders (including Deng Xiaoping himself) continued of years.
New Great March of the Chinese Communists
The fight against corruption continued under the successors of Deng Xiaoping Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. In the “zero” years, around 20 thousands of officials of different levels were sentenced annually for taking bribes to various punishments. In the 2008 year, after two years of trial, former Vice Mayor of Beijing Liu Zhihua was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to death. He was accused of accepting bribes for a total amount of almost one million dollars for the allocation of land for the construction of Olympic facilities. Harsh sentences were handed down to other high-ranking officials, including the chief prosecutor of Tianjin, secretary of the party committee of Shanghai, deputy. Governor of Anhui Province.
In 2011, when the 90 anniversary of the creation of the Communist Party was widely celebrated in China, along with the nationwide passion for 20 red songs and red tourism — collective campaigns around the military glory of the Chinese Red Army — an ideological campaign was launched under the slogan of restoring the glorious traditions of the communists older generations, eradicate abuse. “The party soberly assesses the mortal danger of corruption, which has arisen in the conditions of its long stay in power. If it is absolutely not to end corruption, then this can cost the party the trust of the people, ”said Hu Jintao, the secretary general of the millionth ruling party.
During the ongoing propaganda campaign, it became known that only in 2010, the CPC Central Disciplinary Commission investigated 139 621 corruption cases, 146 517 party members were brought to party responsibility, and 537 cases were transferred to law enforcement agencies. At the same time, a sensational report of the People’s Bank of China was published: since the middle of 1990, about 18 thousands of officials, party workers, security officials and police, as well as heads of state-owned enterprises stole and transferred abroad about 800 billion yuan (more than 120 billion .), and themselves fled for the cordon. The achievements of science and technology were set to fight corruption - the ministry of natural resources used satellites to control the squandering of land. The forced weaning of land from peasants for sale to developers has become one of the main sources of corruption. A comparison of the images with an interval of six months showed that in the surveyed 31 city and county 15% of all land for construction was illegally alienated.
Bo Xilai Case
Worldwide attention to the fight against corruption in China was attracted by the case of Bo Xilai, a former member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, the former secretary of the party committee of the 30 million city of Chongqing. This case became a global sensation not only because of Bo Xilai’s high place in the party-state hierarchy, his former posts (mayor of Dalian, governor of Liaoning Province and Minister of Commerce of China). In the 2012 year, when the scandal broke out, the candidates for the post of the next general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and the PRC Chairman were discussed. Supported by influential forces in the party and state security organs, Bo Xilai was considered as one of the contenders for these top positions. The inevitability of the publicity of the situation was caused by the participation in it of a foreigner who, according to some sources, was a British intelligence officer. From the articles of the Hong Kong and Western media, from the materials of the trial lasting over a year, first over Bo Xilai’s wife, God Kailai, and then the disgraced politician himself, such a picture emerges.
A handsome and sociable Englishman Neil Haywood lived in China for many years, doing all sorts of things at the junction of consulting, journalism and other types of information gathering. Even before moving to Chongqing, he helped foreign businessmen to enter the entourage of Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, then became the main attorney in foreign affairs of an influential family. In particular, he provided studies, security, and the “beautiful life” of their offspring Bo Guagua at universities, first in England and then in the USA, formed the necessary finances for this, extinguished scandals. His relationship with God Kailai was not only businesslike and gradually went very far, but at some stage the woman became angry and decided to put a fat point.
13 November 2011 to God Kailai and the state security officer who followed her instructions poisoned Neil Heywood in a hotel room in Chongqing. The investigation was deliberately confused and the case could not be solved. However, on January 28, 2012, a long-term security guard and assistant, Bo Xilai, now vice mayor and head of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, Wang Lijun, reported to the patron about the compromising evidence against his wife. A member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee did not like this; he regarded the report as an attempt to blackmail and gave his close slap in the face. Wang Lijun realized how far he had come and how far the chief could go against him. In a panic, he decided to flee Chongqing and take refuge in the American Consulate General in Chengdu, the main city of Sichuan province (30-million Chongqing is a separate administrative unit).
A defector of such a high level at the disposal of intelligence officers working under the cover of a consulate is a rare success. At the same time, this is a heavy blow to the prestige and interests of the national security of the state where a similar incident occurs. After several days of stay and appropriate processing, Wang Lijun was given to the Chinese side - to transfer a traitor to the United States would mean a sharp deterioration in interstate relations. From the chain of Wang Lijun to his recent colleagues, the chain reached out to other participants in corruption schemes that were created at different times and in different duty stations Bo Xilai.
In April 2012, the CPC Central Committee decided to suspend Bo Xilai’s membership in the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and the CPC Central Committee and instructed the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCPS) to initiate an investigation. Six months later, on the basis of the report received, the Politburo decided to expel Bo Xilai from the party and dismiss him from public service. The case was referred to the judicial authorities. (The abuses of party members in China are first dealt with in the “party counterintelligence” of the CCTD, which is more feared by the state security organs, and only then deprived of membership in the party is transferred into the hands of ordinary justice organs).
22 September 2013 Bo Xilai was sentenced to life imprisonment by the People’s Court of Jinan City, with life imprisonment of political rights and confiscation of all personal property for embezzlement of public funds and abuse of official position (taking bribes to 3 million dollars).
Difficult start of the new general secretary
The Bo Xilai case arose in spring 2012 of the year, at the end of the reign of Hu Jintao, and the final was held in the autumn of 2013, after the 18 congress (November 2012), which elected the new general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and the NPC session (March 2013), who appointed him as chairman PRC Nevertheless, a scandal created serious problems for Xi Jinping at the first, most difficult stage of consolidation of party and state power.
In China and abroad, rumors were spreading that supporters of Chairman C had a hand in fanning the scandal in order to eliminate a dangerous rival. There were rumors about supporters of the disgraced politician in the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, who were trying to put the brakes on the case. Among them, the name of the ex-member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, the ex-secretary of the political and legal committee of this supreme party body, Zhou Yongkang, who was in charge of all the courts and security agencies of the PRC before the 18, was most often called. In the vicinity of Beijing, during meetings of the party Areopagus, allegedly, strange movements of military columns were observed several times ...
The political decision on Bo Xilai was made by the former Politburo, but the new Secretary General was likely to influence the court, which was preparing the final verdict. If Xi Jinping had not used his colossal power and had not prevented the imposition of the death penalty, this would have too much frightened numerous corrupt officials in the organs of party and state power, could destabilize the situation in the party and the country. The slightest signs of instability in the leadership of a huge network organization governing a country with a population of 1.4 of a billion souls, which in essence is the 80-million Communist Party, could complicate China’s geo-economic and geo-strategic position. In the conditions of slowing economic development and intensified military-political deterrence of China within the framework of the American strategy of “turning to Asia”, this was unacceptable. They expected adequate ideas and solutions from the new leader.
Xi Jinping did not go the beaten path of his closest predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. He did not spend the first year or two of his ten-year rule to consolidate his own power in the conditions of the gradual overflow of the remaining powers from his predecessor. Within a few months, Xi Jinping concentrated in his hands the full power of party and state power, became not only the Secretary General of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the PRC, but also the Supreme Commander. In the first weeks of his tenure, he put forward a very effective “long-playing” ideological concept of the “Chinese dream of a great national rebirth,” which essentially turns China into a developed country by the CPC century in 2021 year and the world-class power of the PRC century. in 2049 year. During 2013, Chairman C immediately formulated three foreign policy concepts designed to strengthen China’s position in relations with the United States, as well as with countries on traditional trade directions - the Great Silk Road and the Sea Silk Road. In the same year, he prepared a program for a new stage of reforming the Chinese economy, which he reviewed, discussed and approved at the W Plenum of the CPC Central Committee.
All this time, Xi Jinping did not let go of the fight against corruption, solved its current issues and prepared strategic plans for the coming decisive offensive. Just a week after the end of the 18 congress, a package of 12 documents was issued that prohibited state bank employees from purchasing luxury cars and using company funds "to pay for purchases of personal residential real estate, repair housing or pay for its rent." Soon, these measures spread to the military. Employees of state-owned companies were told to reduce the cost of purchasing luxury goods and banquets. The “one soup, three snacks” rule was introduced, restricting the banquet menu (it had experienced a significant impoverishment of the recently lush feasts with Chinese academic colleagues and journalists). Sales of luxury goods fell sharply - a bottle of “state-owned” vodka “Maotai”, which serves as a symbol of the high position of drinkers, fell by half over the year, and the export of Swiss watches to China fell by 17%. All of China flew around story official from Shanxi. Local bloggers paid attention to his collection of expensive chronometers and dubbed the Brother Watch. Soon, Bratz Watches sentenced to 14 years on charges of corruption
In April, 2013, Xi Jinping took part in such a specific Chinese event as the collective study of Politburo members. He gave a report to colleagues “Using historical wisdom to advance the fight against corruption and for the integrity of the party apparatus, shared with colleagues the conclusion that the existence or death of the party and the state depends on the correct style of the ruling stratum, the integrity of the apparatus and the fight against corruption.” He further stressed: “We should not relax in the fight against corruption, all cases should be investigated, impunity of corruption crimes should not be allowed. We must simultaneously kill both tigers and flies.
Having met at the beginning of 2014 with the leadership of the “party counterintelligence” TsKPD, the main communist of China called for “actively updating institutions and mechanisms, creating institutional support for fighting corruption” and warned that “there is still a hotbed of corruption generation”. He stated “progress in improving the style of party work and noted that this work began at the Politburo level, and then advanced to lower levels, playing the role of model. Xi Jinping demanded that party overseers "improve the procedure for bringing to justice" and warned against these rules and regulations "not turning into a paper tiger or a straw doll."
Not only thousands of small bribe takers, nicknamed “flies”, but also real ferocious “tigers”, high-ranking party functionaries and government officials, were convinced that the fight against corruption ceased to be a “paper tiger”. In July 2013, the former Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun, who had been removed from his post as early as 2011, was sentenced to death with a delay of two years. In September, 2013 was arrested by Jiang Zemin, the head of the Committee on Control and Management of State Property (KKUGI), and in the recent past the head of the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC). This arrest and the subsequent arrests of four high-ranking CNPC managers signified the beginning of not only the mass capture of "tigers", but also the end of the privileged existence of public sector monopolies, like our Gazprom, Rosneft, Russian Railways ...
Formed by the direction of Xi Jinping, the inspection team began to verify giant corporations and banks managed through XUGUM XKUMI. In the Fortune magazine list, some of them ranked 120 lines from the 60 of the world's largest companies. Three of them even entered the top ten. (Sinopec ranked fourth, CNPC ranked fifth, and State Gird ranked seventh. The Chinese and foreign experts evaluate the contribution of state corporations to China's total GDP from 500 to 30%. In mid-October, the mayor of Nanking Ji Jianye was arrested An investigation was launched into the activities of Zhou Yongkang, who until November 50 was a former member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee, that is, the person who actually belonged to 2012, really ruled the country. In total, after the 9 congress OLO 18 officials of ministerial rank and higher.
Punishments in some cases increased, but in others they were systemically weakened. Even before the 4 plenum, a sensational reform was carried out in the conditions of the PRC - the reeducation system was abolished by labor, i.e. imprisonment without trial, by decision of the local party and administrative authorities in places of detention such as our special settlements. This extrajudicial measure has been widely used since the Mao Tse-Dun times to crack down on any recalcitrant ...
4 plenum of the Central Committee of the CPC - the quantity turns into quality
Expanding the front of the fight against corruption and the growth of the population of captured "tigers" enjoy the support of the people - this is clear not only from the speeches of the increasingly liberated Chinese press, but also millions of posts in the blogosphere. Moreover, the society demands further toughening of punishments of “mean people”. A survey conducted in 2014 by the popular youth newspaper Zhongguo Zinnybao showed that 73% of respondents support the imposition of the death penalty on corrupt officials.
Quantity inevitably turns into quality, and it is step-wise. This philosophical theorem was confirmed by the Chinese Communists, who held October 22-23, 2014, 4, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPA 18 convocation, that is, the fourth after the 18 congress, the CPC party congresses are held once every five years, and once a year, the Central they are equal in value to a full-fledged congress. They consider important current political, economic, international issues, but also highlights the main one, which has strategic importance for the further development of the party and power. The 4 Plenum was devoted to "the main issues of the comprehensive advancement of the rule of law."
Materials and resolutions of the 4 plenum are measured in tens of thousands of hieroglyphs. Of course, they were prepared by hundreds of experts from research centers under the Central Committee, the State Council (government), and the Academy of Sciences. During the discussion of draft documents, party functionaries and activists sent their changes and additions to Beijing. But the main, strategic installation, of course, took himself Xi Jinping. These settings can be combined into four groups.
First, a set of innovations in state-driven law-based innovation is an important part of the reform of China’s political system. The rule of law for the first time became the central theme of the plenum of the Central Committee, the more unprecedented is the decision to establish the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws arising from it. The constitution is declared “the core of the system of socialist legislation with Chinese characteristics.” In order to ensure the implementation of the principles of the Constitution in practice and control, the legislative branch of the All-China Council of People’s Representatives (the NPC, which meets once a year) and its Standing Committee will play a more significant role The communiqué also provides for the active use of their powers by members of legislative bodies not only at the national, but also at the local level. The Reuters senior scientist at the American Brookings Institute, Cheng Li, rightly noted that "the decisions of the plenum would not immediately lead the Communist Party to subordinate the Constitution and the laws. But this is the start of the battle for constitutional order. Even a simple discussion of constitutionalism is encouraging. taboo".
Secondly, the decisions of the plenum confirm the ruling role of the Communist Party in the context of political reform and the imposition of constitutional order. “The leadership of the CPC is consistent with the socialist rule of law,” the communique says. Only if the CPC governs the country in accordance with the law, the rights of the people who are the masters of the state will be realized, and state and public affairs will be exercised in accordance with the law. "As you can see, China took into account the sad experience of the CPSU, which rejected 6 article The USSR Constitution, which asserted the leadership of the party and ensured its systemic role in governing the country, deleted the article - destroyed the party - lost the country. This scenario clearly does not suit Xi Jinping, who is carrying out political Reform step by step, not the methods of "big leaps".
Thirdly, the ruling party provided the judicial branch with unprecedented opportunities to achieve independence. In the communique of the 4 plenum, legislative reform was promised that would limit the influence of officials on the courts and cases. A system will be created in which officials will receive penalties or be held accountable if their interference in court cases is discovered. Regional courts and prosecutor's offices, whose jurisdiction will now go beyond the administrative units, are called upon to destroy the existing schemes of criminal interaction of the judicial authorities with local authorities and to prevent the creation of new ones. The prosecution authorities will be able to bring lawsuits on the statements of citizens and public organizations. Moreover, the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China will establish mobile courts, which will become involved in cases involving claims from the local public, which was not satisfied with local justice. And the decision to impose life responsibility for the cases in which they took part looks absolutely revolutionary.
Fourthly, the level of targets of the anti-corruption struggle is unusually high. The point is not only that a special decision of the Plenum confirmed the exclusion of two members and two candidate members from the current Central Committee. Not only that it was decided to continue the investigation of the case of former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee Zhou Yongkang, the former "king maker" in politics (he patronized the party secretary of 30 million Chongqing Bo Xilu) and the business (he was promoted first to the CNPC oil company then Jiang Zemin was in charge of the analogue of our State Property). On the initiative of Xi Jinping and with the approval of the Plenum, the “fox hunt” has intensified. So nicknamed corrupt officials hiding their wealth in foreign "burrows". The transfer of assets to foreign banks, the export of family members abroad in recent years has taken a scale that creates a threat to national security. The fight against corruption had to cross the borders of China and it happened.
To “flies” and “tigers” add “foxes” and “naked officials”
For many years now the “Party Counterintelligence” of the TsKPD has been confronted with the international dimension of corruption of party members, heads of state bodies and enterprises. But it was only under Xi Jinping that the Commission was empowered to properly deploy the fox hunt. One of the fox breeds is “naked officials” who remain in their high and warm posts in China, but wives, children, relatives, mistresses have already moved abroad, where apartments have been bought, dummy firms have been created, solid accounts have been opened in banks. The scope for cross-border theft is enormous. Only experts from the International Concern of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) found 22000 clients from the PRC and Hong Kong offshore, after 2000 from 1 to 4 trillions of dollars were illegally withdrawn from the PRC. Western experts are convinced that the total amount of bribes and kickbacks in China is equivalent to no less than 3% of GDP (more than 200 billion dollars). In connection with these assumptions, it is worth recalling the report of the People's Bank of China: from the middle of 1990-x to 2008, about 18 thousand officials and employees of state-owned companies took out about 800 billion of illegally earned yuan (about 120 billion dollars) from the country.
Of course, some of the rich got their capitals by honest “inhuman work”, but there are plenty of scammers, corrupt officials, thieves among them. It is against them that the “fox hunt” is conducted. “Party counterintelligence” establishes official contacts with colleagues from anti-corruption agencies of other countries. The final documents of the recent APEC summit in Beijing included a joint statement on the creation in the Pacific region of a new international network of anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies (ACT-NET). It is characteristic that the office of this network will be located in Beijing and it will operate under the auspices of the TsKPD. At the recent G-20 summit in Brisbane, the Chinese delegation also proposed its project of fostering anti-corruption cooperation among the leading countries of the world. The Fox Hunt is already producing results. The Xinhua news agency reported in September that six fugitive, corrupt officials had been captured in the Philippines. The number of foxes caught abroad only this year has reached 180 people, the report underlines.
"Foxes" and "naked officials", "flies" and "tigers". Already captured, successfully escaped over the cordon, corrupt officials and their patrons still operating in their cabinets constitute a significant and highly influential part of the Chinese elite. Turning to a systemic, rather than a companionable fight against corruption and for the rule of law, Xi Jinping is at great risk of making many deadly enemies for himself. Manifestations of discontent or, moreover, open opposition to his "crusade" has not yet been noted. The decisions of the 4 Plenum are discussed and approved at party meetings by all 80 millions of CPC members, in the party press, national and regional media. But we can well expect the silence and perversion of the directives of the Center, sabotage in the creation of new bodies of supervision and control, other forms of hidden resistance. "Tigers" were and remain extremely dangerous predators. But the biggest challenge is the need to reconcile the strict party discipline in the spirit of the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese Communists with the philosophy of unrestrained enrichment, inalienable from the market economy, even "with Chinese characteristics."
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