So this post is really about the stories Hao heard from a Mr. Yu. Below is just a bit of a discussion we had, feel free to skip to the story part.
We began our discussion about the slowed economy in China, and Mr. Hao mentioned how locking up people does not that solve corruption, since it is a rather systematic issue.
We began our discussion about the slowed economy in China, and Mr. Hao mentioned how locking up people does not that solve corruption, since it is a rather systematic issue.
The rationale is that public servants in China typically have salary of 2 - 3 thousand RMB per month. "If you're a public servant, you're either politically well-connected, or you've studied very hard." , while the system itself is already a bit of a limbo, there is no clear roadmap for career advancement or whatsoever in the public sector.
To make ends meet, most people resort to taking under the table money, mostly from large infrastructure projects. The bribes gives the public servant incentives to push forward deals, and thereby more projects are build. By threatening people with jail time, you take away to incentives, and no deals are made, aka slows down the economy.
This argument may sound like a legit reason to take bribe. Coming back to the systematic issue, in my opinion, the first issue lies the lack of (or lack of execution) clear investment standards and procedures in SOEs (Stand Owned Enterprise), which thereby leave out grey area to influence and take bribes, the second, of course is the low salary.
Therefore in my opinion, the worst thing about this wave of anti corruption is because it's a personal fix rather than a system fix, and the effect is rather short-term than long term. In the end it serves more for Mr. Xi's political agenda, than structuring a more transparent and fair political system for China.
This argument may sound like a legit reason to take bribe. Coming back to the systematic issue, in my opinion, the first issue lies the lack of (or lack of execution) clear investment standards and procedures in SOEs (Stand Owned Enterprise), which thereby leave out grey area to influence and take bribes, the second, of course is the low salary.
Therefore in my opinion, the worst thing about this wave of anti corruption is because it's a personal fix rather than a system fix, and the effect is rather short-term than long term. In the end it serves more for Mr. Xi's political agenda, than structuring a more transparent and fair political system for China.
Of course the above is a lot of hearsay and admittedly a very shallow analysis. I think I'll do a blog post later (or maybe never....) with a deeper research and analysis of the issue.
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The background is we have a project in XXX province, and few of my colleagues went there to scout the project and had dinner with the head of the county Mr. Yu.
Story 1. "I'm keeping you on file."
Ever since the anti-corruption started, authorities have been visiting Mr. Yu everyday, to "collect evidence". And after a while they told Mr. Yu "I'm keeping you on file.", then left. Mr. Yu doesn't know what's "on the file", but was pretty sure that one day if he's on the wrong side whatever is on the file will come back to haunt him.
Story 2. "The Text."
One day Mr. Yu received a photo of him and a naked girl in a motel room, with a note saying "Dear Mr. Yu, you're a good fella and certainly would be ashamed you lose your job and integrity over this, please transfer 150,000 rmb to XXX account.".
Upon receiving the photo, Mr. Yu first panic for a while, but then thought closely "I'm pre---tty sure I've never sleep with this one". He did some research and found out the photo was photoshopped. Seems like they found his picture online and photoshopped his face with a naked girl.
Since it's a fairly small county, Mr. Yu phoned the head of the police department directly to try to get the blackmailer. Apparently someone within the police department was also blackmailed "Oh yeh, someone in our department received the same photo. The guy reported to me immediately. I asked him if he did it."
"I'm really not sure........I must have!!"
