Widespread corruption most serious threat to China's future: Report

Beijing [China], June 19 : As new cases of corruption keep getting unearthed every now and then in all aspects of the Chinese government, including law enforcement, healthcare, and education, the problem gets deeply ingrained in the Chinese system and society, reported Madheshvani.

Several members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who hold the majority of power in the country, are reportedly embroiled in corruption. It has been discovered that they are misusing political authority for personal gain. Since 2012, the anti-corruption effort, which has prioritised the judiciary, banking industry, and law enforcement, has implicated almost 3 million officials. There are dozens of ministerial-level officers, hundreds of deputy ministerial-level officials, state-level officers, and deputy state-level officers among them, as per Madheshvani.

Madheshvani is a Nepal-based publication established in 2005.

For the most part, the CCP members use two strategies to steal public funds for their own gain. On the one hand, the costs for personal benefits are purportedly listed as legal official expenses. On the other hand, many dishonest municipal politicians effectively convert their territories into "mafia states," where they work with shady characters and dishonest businesspeople to engage in illicit activities.

In the most recent case, unconfirmed sources quoted by Madheshvani suggest that Luo Cheng, a former secretary of the Pingguo Municipal Party Committee of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is suspected of major violations of discipline and law (a phrase frequently employed by the CCP to conceal cases of corruption in the Party). The Supervisory Committee and Disciplinary Commission of the Autonomous Region are presently investigating him.

In August 2003, Luo Cheng allegedly enrolled in the Communist Party of China. In charge of the Baise Construction Management Office and the Baise City Development and Reform Commission, respectively, he oversaw the revitalization strategy for the Zuojiang Revolutionary Old Area. In May 2020, he was chosen to serve as Pingguo City's interim mayor. He was appointed Secretary of the Pingguo Municipal Party Committee in June 2021.

Cheng is another addition to a long list of high-ranking CCP members and provincial portfolio holders to be implicated in serious corruption.

One of the biggest challenges to China's future political and economic stability is widespread corruption. At least 3 per cent of GDP is lost to bribery, kickbacks, theft, and waste of public monies.

In addition to undermining the CCP's legitimacy, corruption worsens economic disparity, degrades the environment, and promotes civil unrest. Since the late 1980s, studies of the general population on the Chinese mainland have revealed that corruption is one of their top worries, Madheshvani reported.