on "corruption"

corruption - dishonest and fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery.

definition according to the mac dictionary.

so.. the chinese people are not really corrupt contrary to popular belief. however, to do engage in some conduct that is not transparent in nature, which may or may not fall under the category of corrupt, depending on your definition. moreover, there is a very valid reason why they turned out this way.

(note. this is more on the government officials, rather than the businessmen. well cos i learnt about the govt officials and not the private sector.)

this is going to be super wordy. (i skipped a lot of explanations to summarize the whole thing. so some parts maybe a bit missing.)

so to describe what it is.. i need to tell you a bit of history. the history would reveal certain aspects of how the chinese behavior today in contemporary china. some of the stuff may be wrong (oops!) but yeah as said before, i'm no expert. just summarizing what i've learned in class and also what i've learnt on my field trips.

so.. a long long time ago... mao was born.

and then there comes a time in 1949, when mao, one of the leaders of the CCP, beat the heck out of the KMT (kuomingtang) and took over control of china. KMT went to taiwan, and are still there. they hate each other's guts, so they're always quarreling (the reason is cos of the previous struggles from 1920s to 1949 - would take another essay to explain this). so mao took over, and ushered in the new communist era.

in a short summary, they passed a law, and everything became state owned. no more personal land, etc. so people are now organized into communes. each commune is kind of like a community. so in the community there will be a factory, and some land. so everyone gets employed by the state, as factory workers, farmers, shopkeepers, etc. everyone earned $36, no matter what position you work as. supervisor earns $36, laborer earns $36. but if u are in a senior position u get other benefits, like getting to go to dinners with big shots, have more clout, etc.

food was provided for, by rationing. farmers work the land and sell the produce back to a central pool. everyone then gets rationed quantities of food. the factory also runs a school, clinics, etc. for the workers' family. so everything is settled by the factory. and the factory is owned by the state. therefore the state provides for everything.

for a period of time this new system did work. grain productivity increased A LOT, and many other benefits came along. however, there are obviously some failures. cos your life is guaranteed by the state, nobody wants to work hard. since if u do work or dont do, you still get $36. along the way, many things happened also, such as the great leap forward, which was quite a failure. but anyway, mao finally died in 1976.

so after him, the next big shot took over. Deng Xiao Ping. So his era started in the 1980s. so when he took over, he realized he had to change the system for the progress of china, by introducing "socialism with chinese characteristics". the commune system was thus abolished. the land was returned to the people, i.e. each family got its plot of land to work, etc. the land was also returned to the local govts to manage. the factories also stopped providing all these services also. Deng also opened up china's economy to foreign investments. so now pple can be farmers, workers, or civil servants, etc. this is still the current system in use, called the hukou system. basically your family is registered in a certain area of china, and that is your hometown. it is some restrictive population control mechanism (can start a debate on this, but shall not.)

so the changes of course were not instant. took like many many years, to develop and slowly change people's mindsets, and to implement change. up till now, many changes are still being made, as this system great influences on public policy.

in this new system, more power was to be transferred to the local people to manage their own areas. so now there is the central govt, and all the various provincial govt. further down the line, there will be the county govt, and town govt, and village chief. this hierarchy was already present, by the system became more institutionalized and roles defined (but still not very well defined). so the central govt sets the policy, and the bottom pple relay down the message, and also implement the policies.

but the thing is, over the years, the govt kept pushing more responsibilities to the local govts, but not increase the budget for them. with more things to do, you need to spend more. but then the govt keep cutting their budget, or not increasing it. therefore in order to survive, the local govts has to look for other sources. which often leads to negative consequences. so some people start charging the citizens very random fees. like all these mysterious admin fees kind of thing, to increase their revenue.

one prime example is the healthcare system. it is a total mess, as kw can testify. if u are a villager and get a serious illness in china, you are as good as dead, because the healthcare system is so expensive. main reason is because of the lowered budget from the govt, the hospital have to look for other sources of revenue. so they start raising prices, recommend patients for unnecessary treatments, colluding with the pharmaceuticals to sell medicine, etc. it is just to ensure organizational survival. however, when they actually made enough money to survive, they get greedy and simple continue their practices. they are human after all, and give in to temptations.

another example is local development of social services. basically at a provincial level, they also face the same budget issues and increased responsibility. with the factories providing lesser services, the govt is supposed to make up for it (as in most developed countries). but the local govts got not enough money. so they have to earn some money first. therefore they rent the land out to factories and businesses to earn the money, so that they can gather capital and than build services like elderly homes, etc. but after many years, they are still developing and rasiing capital, even though the renting out of the land has been rather profitable. so social services are still rather neglected in the 1980s and 90s.

so in a sense, they are not corrupt, cos they didnt take bribes or engage in dishonest practice. it may be unethical to some people, but they have to ensure their own survival. but the only thing is that they become greedy and neglect certain things (there's nothing wrong with being greedy and wanting to earn money. just look at all the ibankers). and the whole concpet about china is that they want to develop and keep developing. so the social and environmental aspects of life are facing the brunt of the impacts of economic development.