Hardly a week goes by in China now without some leader being executed or arraigned for corruption. And the level of the officials being charged and convicted (much the same thing in China) is rising.

In the last year we have seen the executions of Hu Changqing, deputy governor of Jiangxi Province, Li Chenglong, vice mayor of Guiyang in Gaungxi Province and, highest of all, Cheng Kejie, vice chairman of China's parliament, the National People's Congress. More recently, Mu Suixin, the mayor of Shenyang, and even the minister of justice himself, Gao Changli, have been relieved of their posts pending investigation of allegations of corruption. In the last two cases, it was the activities of the women, wife and mistress respectively, that precipitated to the fall from grace.

We are also waiting for a final accounting in the large-scale smuggling case in Xiamen, in which more than 200 people have been implicated in a $10 billion scam. This case was said to involve people high in the Communist Party hierarchy, although so far only the vice minister of public security, Li Jizhou, has been arrested. The alleged mastermind of the Xiamen case, Lai Changxing, chairman of the Yuanhua Company that is claimed to have organized the smuggling, escaped to Canada, where he is now subject to extradition proceedings.