Chongqing is not alone in having to deal with conflicts such as this. In the midst of the trials, on October 12 in Luliang city in Shanxi Province, more than 100 gangsters attacked 40 villagers who were guarding a coal mine near their village, killing four and severely injuring another 14. The head of the organized criminal gang, Li Baoming, is the manager of Sanxing Mining Company who after years of fraudulent business practices recently lost ownership of the coal mine to local villagers in a lawsuit. At least 58 gangsters were later arrested. However, it later transpired that Li Baoming’s younger brother, Li Haibin, is the deputy chief of the local security bureau.
Over 1,000 miles away from Chongqing in Shanghai, Zhou Xiaodi, a billionaire property developer, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on November 5 for hiring gangsters to severely injure a senior manager of a competitive real estate company in 2007.
Several local real estate officials in different provinces have already fallen in 2008 due to corruption. Also earlier in late October, Pan Shiyi, president of Soho China and a real estate guru himself, revealed how some real estate companies have speculated on land to gain exceptional profits, and how relevant laws are toothless.
Seeking a Solution
With the Chongqing trials still underway, many are now starting to explore solutions to the growing menace of China’s black society.
Professor Wang Li believes that an effective property declaration system for government officials will deter many officials from engaging in corruption. However, without mentioning the difficulty of passing such a law (an existing draft has met with strong resistance among officials), such a declaration system may only serve to strengthen illegal ties. With nowhere to hide the corrupt money, it is very likely that they will go underground.
Actually, according to Zhou Litai, a respected lawyer based in Chongqing, the boom in illegal moneylending in Chongqing has been fueled by illegal income from corrupt officials who seldom deposit their money in banks.
It has become apparent that in the triangular relationship between the government, businesses and the people, it is the people who have been the weakest. To effectively fight corruption and gangs, the key lies in empowering the people and increasing the government’s accountability.
The Chinese government has, over the past several years, launched a series of village-level elections, but the results have been mixed. Plagued by bribery and entangled by conflicts of local interest many village councils are now controlled by those who have “connections,” and have subsequently become a hotbed of rural gangs.
At the national level, many have hoped that the “Two Conferences” – China People’s Congress (CPC) and the China People’s Political Consultative Committee (CPPCC) – could provide a means of countering local corruption. However, the two conferences have grown to increasingly favor special interest groups. Their members, albeit elected in theory, are composed mostly of China’s political and economic elite. For example, among the 1,200 national CPC members, there are only a few representatives for hundreds of millions of migrant workers.
In an effort to make the CPC more representative, on October 28, the national government released a proposed reform increasing the ratio between urban and rural representatives from 4:1 to 1:1.
Zhou Ruijin, former deputy chief editor of People’s Daily, recently wrote in the China Elections and Governance journal that the Chinese government should be determined to cut its links with special interest groups, and to promote democracy at the grassroots level. Only then, can a really “harmonious society” be achieved.
December, 2009
