User:Shanghainese/Sandbox
Imperial China
[edit]Spread of corruption in traditional China is often connected to the Confucian concept of renzhi, "government of the people" as opposed to the legalist "government of the law".
Profit li was despised as preoccupation of the base people, while the true Confucianists were supposed to guide there actions by the moral principle of justice yi. Thus all the relations remained to be based solely on mutual trust and propriety li.
As a matter of cause, this kind of moral uprightness could be developed only among the minority. A famous attempt of Wang Anshi to reduce corruption through institutionalization of the monetary relations of the state were met with Confucian elite's sharp criticism.
As a result, corruption continued to be widespread both in the court (Wei Zhongxian, Heshen) and among the local elites.
Special kind of corruption in China developed in connection with the imperial examination system, which itself worked as foundation of the Confucian ideology.
People's Republic of China
[edit]In the PRC the reforms of Deng Xiaoping were much criticized for reintroducing of corruption, as the cost of economic development. Emergence of private sector inside of the state economy in post-Maoist time tempted the CPC members to misuse their power on the government posts.
Corruption in the Party was one of the forces behind the Tiananmen protests of 1989.
The powerful economic levers in the hands of the Party elite propelled the sons of some party officials to the most profitable posts, so as to make the CPC called the "princelings' party" (taizidang), referring to the Imperial China patterns of corruption.
Scores of corruption scandals make the old generation nostalgic of Maoist egalitarianism.
- Wang Shouxin
- Yang Bin
- Chen Liangyu
- Qiu Xiaohua, the nation's chief statistician, was sacked and arrested in connection with the pension-fund scandal.[1]
- Zheng Xiaoyu
- Lai Changxing