Scandal doesn't stand in the way of many experienced officials
- By Wan Lixin
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, February 7, 2013
Another cause for official reluctance to penalize, according to Deng, is that to bring up a cadre would cost an inordinate amount of resources, and it would be unrealistic to simply consign an experienced cadre to the cold bench for some mistake.
For instance, this week Zhao Haibin, a senior policeman in Guangdong, is being investigated for owning 192 houses and having two national identity cards.
A spokesman from the local disciplinarian authority said that so far they had not found Zhao had been involved in anything illegal.
"It is not easy to cultivate a division level (keji) cadre, and any probe must proceed with maximum caution," the spokesman said.
Some officials can be reinstated so soon because they agree to be made scapegoat for a scandal in return for the promise of future promotion.
Failure to keep up the promise would amount to a violation of the rules of the game in officialdom.
According to Zhu Lijia, an expert on public administration, in a modern democratic political system, an official who has been disciplined for a serious mistake generally has little hope of ever staging a comeback, for it is well nigh impossible to win back the public trust.
Nearly all Chinese officials who have been disciplined can find their way back into the saddle so quickly because such appointments can be carried out in secrecy within the bureaucracy, without having to consult the people.
And when scandals break out, the government prides itself on its coping tactics, and its skills to maintain social stability are often valued assets for promotion.
Control by weakness
Without effective outside supervision, a government cannot but develop into a monolith of vested interests that occasionally feels the inconvenience of having to appease public ire, generally in the wake of online expose of a particularly outrageous nature.
Recently we have heard quite a few scandals: dozen of senior officials in Chongqing caught in the act in bed with their mistresses, bank chiefs with multiple identities and dozens of properties, or a village chief with four wives and 10 children.
Outrageous as these incidents are, none of these has been exposed by the disciplinary departments whose routine job is to expose wrongdoers.
Ironically, sometimes an official became more valued because of his weakness.
Take the case of the officials in Chongqing caught cavorting with women.
When the scandal first came to the attention of the officials' superiors, the sex escapades were hushed up and the official culprits promoted, apparently in the belief that it is easier to control a subordinate by his weakness than merit.
These officials were punished only after videos detailing their sex escapades had been deliberately leaked online by disgruntled insiders.
Another reason why some people are so eager to appoint disgraced officials might be that such officials tend to be more grateful.
There might be many other explanations, but the spate of recent scandals points to the urgent need for functioning systemic supervision within our government.
Otherwise we would have a government steadily estranged from its stated goal of serving its people, and more skillful at coping with public discontent.
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