Corruption among Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials is almost omnipresent. Among the many corruption cases reported by the authorities, some are particularly revealing about the overall situation in China.
Many cases show this, even among officials who are meant to crack down on corruption.
Liu Lixian, nearly 70, was the former deputy head of the inspection team of the CCP Central Committee and deputy director of the anti-corruption and anti-graft bureau of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, but he is currently undergoing a trial for alleged bribery.
From March 2014, Mr. Liu was the deputy head of the 11th inspection team of the CCP Central Committee. Between 2014 and 2017, he participated in nine rounds of inspections and served as deputy head of the inspection team nine times.
In September last year, Mr. Liu suddenly “voluntarily reported himself to the authorities” and was expelled from the Party in January this year.
A report by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the State Supervision Commission said that Mr. Liu had violated the law, used his power as a tool for personal gain, engaged in power-for-money deals, and illegally accepted huge amounts of money and property.
The report also said that Mr. Liu had “lost his ideals and beliefs, abandoned his original mission,” was “disloyal and dishonest to the Party,” and “illegally acquired an overseas identity [citizenship] and concealed it for a long time.”
Jailed Official Reports on Others
Hu Jianyong, former Party chief of Yudu county, Jiangxi Province, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012 for accepting bribes, corruption, and the crime of unexplained origin of large amounts of personal assets. He also reported on more than 300 people while in prison.In his reporting letters, he wrote down in detail which people gave him what gifts and when, as well as the gifts he gave to others in return.
Enormous Sum of Dirty Money
Liu Zhigeng, former vice governor of Guangdong Province and former mayor of Dongguan was sentenced to life imprisonment in May 2017 for accepting bribes. The magnitude of his corruption makes him stand out.The CCDI froze a number of Chinese and foreign bank accounts in the name of Liu Zhigeng and his friends and relatives, with deposits totaling 37 billion yuan (about $5.67 billion at the exchange rate at the time).
The CCDI also searched some of his residences in Beijing, Shanghai, and five other provinces and found Chinese and foreign bonds worth 51 billion yuan (about $7.82 billion), confiscated about 300 properties with a total value of 1.7 billion yuan (about $260 million), antiques and paintings worth 1 billion yuan (about $150 million), as well as 60 cars, expensive Chinese and foreign wines, gold and silver, and cash in Chinese and foreign currencies. The total amount was about 90.7 billion yuan (about $13.9 billion), according to Chinese state media.
Some netizens compared the enormous sum of dirty money that the Eight-Nation Alliance—Russia, France, Japan, British Empire, Germany, United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary—demanded from the Qing government following the anti-foreigner Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
The coalition invaded China and crushed the Boxer Rebellion, which also resulted in the collapse of the Qing army. Eventually, the Qing government signed the Treaty of Hsinchou with 11 countries, including the eight nations of the military coalition. The treaty stipulated that the Qing Empire would pay a total of 450 million taels of silver (equivalent to 16.785 billion grams), which was equivalent to $333 million at the time.
Most Corrupt of Them All?
There are many others who are even more corrupt than Liu. It is widely believed that in China, the most corrupt family is that of the former CCP dictator, Jiang Zemin.Hong Kong industrialist Elmer Yuen Gong-yi revealed to the Chinese-language Epoch Times in 2020 that according to some conservative analysis, the assets of senior Chinese officials outside China were estimated at $10 trillion. Jiang’s family, with about $1 trillion in overseas assets, has the largest share.
Bernard Arnault, the world’s richest man and CEO of LVMH, currently has a net worth of $231 billion. In other words, the estimated corrupt wealth of Jiang’s family is more than four times that of the world’s richest man.
The biggest corrupt official in China’s 5,000-year history is said to be Heshen (1717-1799), the chief cabinet minister of the Qing Dynasty. According to historical records about the confiscation of Heshen’s house, he had embezzled a total of 1.1 billion taels of silver. This earned Heshen the title of “the most corrupt person of all time.”
Breeding Ground for Corruption
In the 10-plus years of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, more than 600 high-ranking corrupt officials above the provincial level have fallen from grace, and more than 5 million Party cadres have been investigated.Yuan Hongbing, a former law professor at Peking University and a now dissident living in exile in Australia, recently told The Epoch Times that he learned from insiders that Xi originally wanted to blame Jiang for the CCP’s widespread corruption, but had to put that on hold because the officials he has personally selected are not clean either.
Why is there pervasive corruption within the CCP? In a special editorial published on April 2, the Chinese-language Epoch Times pointed out that the Party itself is the root of the problem. The CCP runs everything and has absolute power, but it is not restrained by any independent mechanisms or human moral values, making it fertile ground for corruption to thrive.
