According to the preparation team for the 17th National People’s Congress of China, 2,237 high ranking Chinese officials in the party and/or government agencies have been punished since November 2002 to mid 2006 for committing adulterous acts. The team made this revelation when examining the qualification of candidates for members and alternate members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Central Committee. Among those punished, 142 were expelled from the party along with having their administrative positions revoked, and 32 were given a prison sentence.
Eighty Percent CCP High Ranking Officials Have Extramarital Affairs
From early April to mid August 2006, the Research Center of the CCP Central Committee and the Research Office of the State Council of China conducted a survey in 35 regions. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Ministry of Supervision, other various governmental institutions, The People’s Daily (an official newspaper of the CCP), and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China participated in the research. The survey results showed that over 80 percent of high-ranking officials of the party and/or government agencies have committed extramarital affairs or other sex-related acts. This rate is even higher in more developed areas, reaching as high as 95 percent. Extramarital affairs are more common among officials between the ages of 45 and 56. The survey also revealed that these officials seem to regard extramarital affairs as “unimportant details in daily life,” “common for an open-minded society,” “ the natural way of things,” and even “the inevitable consequence of a developing and prospering society.”
Three Key Complaints against High-Ranking OfficialsM
Since the late 80s, sex-related cases have preceded corruption, embezzlement, and abuse of authority on the list of complaints about high-ranking officials reported to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision. Among officials involved in corruption, as many as 98 percent also committed extramarital affairs.
In 2005 alone, China’s inspection departments received about 124,760 letters voicing complaints about the local and/or central government’s high-ranking officials. Among the complaints, 34,650 involved extramarital affairs, 31,907 involved corruption and bribery, and 27,450 involved abuse of authority.
In the first half of 2006, reported complaints on high ranking officials regarding extramarital affairs, other sex-related acts and gambling were twice as many as that of the previous year.
Penalties for sex-related acts of high ranking officials are hard to implement
The CCP has also realized the negative effect caused by sex acts of officials, and therefore made efforts to curb such things. The Secretary of the CCP Central Committee, Zeng Qinghong, said in the opening ceremony of the Party School on September 1 that it was necessary to denounce adultery among high-ranking CCP officials. He said that it was shameful for a party member to commit such crimes, and such matters should not be treated lightly. Once such violations are confirmed, the violator should be expelled from the party and publicly removed from his/her post, said Zeng.
Zeng also pointed out that the habitual adultery and other sexual atrocities of the high-ranking officials have harmed social order and stability, lowered the level of social morality, evoked more complaints from the people, further tainted the image of the CCP, degenerate the social morality, cause family tragedies and destroy traditional morality.
Although the party has made regulations regarding adultery, it is not easy to implement the penalties, especially when it comes to high-ranking CCP officials. In most cases, violators receive a slap on the wrist, particularly if the violator is a party member or has a high-ranking position.
Even the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee cannot get the work done. The bureau suggested that those who committed adulterous acts should be excluded from the CCP Central Committee. But this proposal was met with strong objections in later discussions. The objectors argued that such a regulation would produce a negative effect within the party as well as in society.
