China's new president, Xi Jinping, who was formally elected Thursday, is already engaged in his own anti-corruption campaign, threatening to go after the key players β the tigers as well as the flies. Confronting the issue is a matter of political self-interest and survival for China's new leaders. The problem is how to root out corrupt officials when so many are quite literally invested in the system. Consider the case of Huang Yubiao, a Chinese real estate millionaire with a charitable streak.
He was seen on local television promising poverty-stricken villagers, "I'll give you whatever you need. But his failed attempt to buy a seat on the Hunan Province People's Congress turned him into a whistle-blower.
They asked me to add money, but I didn't. It needed to be higher, maybe even triple that. He even accused an official, the Shaoyang Congress standing committee's deputy head, of encouraging him to bribe.
He told Xinhua news agency that he'd originally intended to give money to all electors, but stopped handing out the bribes when he realized how "meaningless" the process was. He failed to get elected by 26 votes. Now, a corruption investigation is under way.
Political patronage and the use of familial connections are deeply ingrained in the Chinese Communist Party's hierarchy, where job-buying comes in many forms, both overt and hidden. I know that people who want to be legislators can just give an antique or a voucher to whoever is in charge, or even help their family members to go overseas to study.
