A major newspaper on the mainland published a commentary professing that allowing a "certain degree" of corruption "acceptable to the people" is understandable at this stage of development.

I was surprised that such offensive writing hasn't stirred a storm of protest from readers whose intelligence it so blatantly insulted and whose sense of justice it so perversely outraged. The usually prolific Chinese bloggers who seem to have a ready opinion on anything have largely steered clear of the issue, preferring to vent their spleens on such trivial transgressions as models showing off more of their bodies by dressing less at various auto shows.

There is really little point in refuting the twisted logic that argues for tolerating corruption, in any degree. We heard those arguments before. None of them makes any sense.

Hong Kong people of my age know the evils of corruption. We were all victims of it once. Memories of how rampant corruption in the 1960s and part of 1970s soured our lives have continued to haunt us.

When I was a reporter back in the 70s in Hong Kong working late shift, I had the habit of eating a bowl of wonton noodles at a hawker stand down the street from the office before heading home. The vendor, a middle-aged man struggling to feed a family of six, sometimes complained that he was making too little money after paying off the police. Instead of finding it morally objectionable, the vendor seemed resigned to the fact that if he didn't have to pay graft to the police, he would have to pay "protection money" to the gangsters.

I think that was what the writer of that commentary meant by "degree of corruption acceptable to the people." But it didn't seem to occur to the Hong Kong hawker in those days that it was wrong to grease police palms to protect him from extortion by the gangsters. Such a foul practice, though accepted by him and many others in those days, should be condemned.

At a time when corruption was endemic in Hong Kong, it was easy for people to be misled into thinking that it was a necessary part of life. We didn't think much at that time about paying a few hundred dollars in graft money to get a phone line and tips of varying amounts, in addition to the normal charges for utility services to which we were entitled. To some people, the corrupt system in Hong Kong, at least, was quite efficient: you basically got what you paid for.

But that didn't make it right. Corruption does bad things to people's minds. A class mate of mine who got a job as a clerk in a police station told me that every month, someone would discreetly leave in his drawer an envelope with cash equal to the amount of his pay. That was his share of the take although he wasn't even in the position to solicit graft.

Easy money had apparently corrupted my friend's mind and eventually ruined his life. He became addicted to gambling, got himself into debt that he couldn't possibly repay and, in a fight over money, accidentally killed his girlfriend. For that, he was sentenced to jail for 10 years.

That tragedy convinced me no corruption should be accepted. Since the establishment of the ICAC, or Independent Commission Against Corruption, in the mid 1970s, zero tolerance of corruption has become our way of life. We want to keep it that way.

The author is a current affairs commentator.

(HK Edition 08/07/2012 page3)