This was published 13 years ago
It is not what you know, it's Hu you pay
Beijing analysts trying to guess the next leadership line-up are watching the fallout from three high-profile corruption cases, writes John Garnaut.
By John Garnaut
E
lite politics in China has evolved from the bloody imperial revolutions and ideological purges under Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. But it's still a body-contact sport.
The modern instrument of choice is not a peasant army or a shrill People's Daily editorial but a secretive corruption probe that usually begins against a well-connected businessman. Beijing analysts trying to guess the next leadership line-up are watching the fallout from cases against Gome Electronics founder Huang Guangyu, Shenzhen Air maverick Li Zeyuan and China Mobile Party boss Zhang Chunjiang.
The entrepreneurs were generous to their political benefactors. Whether they were more corrupt than other equally successful businessman in China is difficult to tell (although Li's looting of Shenzhen Air seems particularly brazen). What seems clear is the final criterion for authorising the investigations was not how or how much in bribes they paid, but who they paid.
The case of Huang Guangyu, who was sentenced to 14 years' jail last week, has made life uncomfortable for a member of the nine-member Standing Committee. The still-unfolding Shenzhen Air case implicates a member of the Central Military Commission and a patron of Zhang Dejiang, a Politburo member who had hoped to break into the Standing Committee.
The senior figures affected in both cases are close to former president Jiang Zemin, while the China Mobile case has so far brought down a key business partner of Jiang's son, Jiang Mianheng. It is no coincidence that Jiang Zemin is the chief factional rival of party boss, Hu Jintao.
Corruption probes such as these are far too sensitive to be left to the ordinary Chinese judicial system. The Communist Party investigates itself through its Commission for Discipline Inspection. There are thousands of these, replicated at every tier of party-government and every major state institution.
Stacked with Communist Party cadres rather than forensic accountants and investigators, the commissions at times have had so few resources they have begged and even bribed the State Security apparatus to help with investigations, a source with connections to the Central Commission says.
The primary method of gathering information is to detain suspects or witnesses without contact with the outside world for up to six months, until they confess to their sins or cough up information about a bigger target. This extralegal detention is known as shuanggui.
The key to the system is that it "allows the party to control investigations from the onset", according to scholar Flora Sapio, in a 2008 paper.
The internal party system not only decides who gets punished but also what evidence gets passed onto to the judicial system. The propaganda machine determines what evidence, if any, is revealed to the public. Each stage can be a matter of intense political negotiation.
The Huang Guangyu trial was closed to all but one journalist, from Xinhua, and Xinhua's report of the verdict last week was sparse indeed. It listed the broad nature of the convictions and listed a few officials he had bribed, but not the highest ones. A Communist Party-controlled Hong Kong paper, the Takung Pao, listed the former Guangdong security chief, Shenzhen mayor and Supreme Court deputy chief justice - who have been separately detained or sentenced.
Some say the Takung Pao is controlled by the party's United Front department, which is largely loyal to Hu, rather than the propaganda department, closer to Jiang.
Business people who fear being caught up in politicised cases like Huang Guangyu are fleeing the country, according to a front page report in yesterday's Economic Observer. Foreigners are not immune: the China Mobile case raised awkward questions for two prominent American deal makers.
And China's worsening corruption problem? The Commission for Discipline Inspection is not really designed to tackle it. "Behind all of this is an institutional foundation and a lack of supervision that provide people like Huang Guangyu with opportunities for tax fraud, corruption and embezzlement," the Takung Pao said.