Chinese efforts to clean up the economy have claimed more victims. This week, two high-ranking officials of the State Power Corporation were arrested for taking bribes; more arrests are expected. They are the latest offenders caught in the campaign to root out corruption. The program is absolutely necessary if China is to modernize its economy, but it also carries high risks for the Chinese Communist Party. That tension guarantees that the anticorruption drive will be controversial and inconsistent.
China's transition to a social market economy has not been pretty. Since former supreme leader Deng Xiaoping declared that "to get rich is glorious" and gave the green light to China's particular form of capitalism, Communist Party officials have aggressively exploited the new order, using their influence and authority to claim a share of the newly privatized assets and funds. The government admitted that state funds amounting to $14 billion, or about one-fifth of annual central government revenues, were misused in the first half of 1999. It is estimated that nearly $30 billion in goods are smuggled into China annually, and the lost taxes and tariffs reach 8 percent of GDP.
China began a crackdown -- at least in name -- in 1999, as the country prepared for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. It soon became clear that the problems reached the upper levels of the party and the credibility and ultimately the effectiveness of any anticorruption drive would depend on nabbing high-profile culprits.