Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Chinese university course in corruption
State news agency Xinhua says that China punished 146,517 officials for corruption last year alone. Photograph: Stephen Shaver/EPA
State news agency Xinhua says that China punished 146,517 officials for corruption last year alone. Photograph: Stephen Shaver/EPA

Chinese university offers anti-corruption course

This article is more than 13 years old
Top government prosecutors are helping to train 30 masters students at Renmin University to investigate crooked officials

Other professors began the year by stressing high academic standards. He Jiahong ordered his students not to buy teachers gifts or take them out for dinner.

The law professor has particular reason for scrupulousness: his course at Beijing's prestigious Renmin University is China's first on investigating corruption. Top government prosecutors are helping train 30 masters students to interrogate suspects and administer lie detector tests in pursuit of crooked officials.

His instructions to students underline the endemic nature of corruption in the country.

"The parents generally don't want special favours for their kids. If they don't give [professors gifts], they think their child may not be treated equally," he said.

"To bribe for equal treatment – that's really sad."

Professor He has spent more time than most thinking about corruption – in his academic career, as a prosecution official and even in the popular detective novels he has penned in his spare time.

But it is a subject that no one here can avoid. Last week, President Hu Jintao vowed to step up the fight against the "grave" problem but admitted the task was daunting. State news agency Xinhua said that China punished 146,517 officials for corruption last year alone.

It is not just the news stories of multimillion-yuan bribes that cause bitterness. It is personal experience: from the migrant worker saving for illicit "fees" so her child can go to a school that should be free to the entrepreneur who closed down a lucrative government-supply business because he was tired of buying officials drink-soaked dinners.

Yet He's young students are idealistic as well as angry. Xiong Hao decided to turn his back on social work after his hometown of Chongqing launched a high-profile crackdown on organised crime. Like many residents he was appalled at the scale of complicity that emerged; the former deputy police chief, Wen Qiang, was executed earlier this year for taking bribes to shield gangsters. Since then, more than 170 others had been sacked for similar collusion.

"There were so many officials who committed corruption and it affected so many people's lives. I thought by choosing this course I could do something meaningful to change things," he said.

"We are only 30 students, but I think it's an important signal; it means our government is emphasising solving the problem."

Yet it is more than six years since senior leaders described the battle against corruption as a life and death struggle for the party. In that time, repeated campaigns and high-profile arrests seem to have had little effect; perhaps, say cynics, because the latter often owe as much to political infighting as the level of misbehaviour involved.

Even those supposed to uphold the law have proved adept at breaking it. In September a senior anti-corruption official received a suspended death sentence for taking 7.71m yuan (£731m) in bribes to help people gain advantages in business and court cases or avoid arrest.

"The [suspects] are public officials so they might have power and useful relationships. It's not like murder or theft, where you are dealing with street guys. Local governments support investigation of those crimes, but sometimes with a corruption investigation you cannot get support," added He.

He hopes his graduates will become leaders in their field, but said prevention was more important than investigation or punishment.

"We have the death penalty but we still have so many corrupt officials," he pointed out, arguing that tighter rules on declaring assets were needed, along with an amnesty so corrupt officials can start afresh and – most ambitiously – rule of law.

Others make even bolder calls. While democracy does not guarantee clean government – India and Argentina rate worse than China in the corruption perception rankings produced by Transparency International – many think it is impossible to rein in officials unless they are properly accountable to citizens.

Mao Yushi, a Beijing-based expert on governance, welcomed the new course but added: "We need to push for an independent judicial system and political reform.

"The Communist party cannot monopolise power and rights should be returned to the people".

Additional research by Lin Yi

Most viewed

Most viewed