“The cat-and-mouse game”

When Guanxi corruption seized China, many people faulted relationalism as the rich soil that nurtured it. The repeated failures of many heroic actions taken by emperors and reform-minded officials, like Zhang Juzheng in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), seem to support that notion. But nearby Hong Kong and Singapore are also relational societies, yet they are among the least politically and economically corrupt environments in the world, according to data from the United Nations. The conspicuous difference is that there is strict legislature and impartial law enforcement against corrupt behavior in Hong Kong and Singapore. Even though the critical need for a disinterested judiciary system is indisputable, the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) still seems reluctant to subject the Party to an impartial judiciary system. In the continued absence of such an independent legal system, the eradication of the soil of political and economic corruption remains an empty promise. Contemporary reformers are thus destined to become yet another group of failed anti-corruption heroes and the “cat-and-mouse” game will continue.