ABSTRACT
I would argue that another factor is a psychological one: with the reforms, the cadres, who formerly sat atop Chinese society in class and status as well as power, saw their positions deteriorate as their salaries, thus the desirability of their positions, fell behind not only of those who entered the private business sector but even of persons such as taxi drivers and hawkers, people previously far beneath them in society. Moreover, to the extent that they sincerely believed in the communist ideology, their positions fell victim to the least legitimate of persons, free market capitalists. The solution was to commodity the one thing they had which was worth money or influence, their authority. Any authority which involved granting permission could be commodified. As to whether this failure to live up to the Communist Party’s image of public servants as persons who unselfishly ‘serve the people’ might have brought forth pangs of conscience, I offer the following anecdote. A Chinese friend, now a law lecturer in Australia, related his return after doing his law degree (in China) to visit the area of rural Fujian where he had spent his time as a ‘sent-down’ youth. He found, much to his sorrow, that the forests had been denuded, and making enquiries, he found that the cadre in charge of the area had had this done to sell the wood to a lumber mill. He enquired of the cadre, who admitted that this was a bad thing to do, rationalized that ‘if I don’t do this, my successor will’. My friend said this was a very common attitude in China today.6 Indeed, Rocca distinguishes between tanwu, corruption, when an official misappropriates state property, and shouhui, bribery, when a public servant uses hers/his position to demand or receive bribes (Rocca, 1992:405).
