The left hand will never punish the right

The corruption cases exposed so far revolving around housing ownership and hukou, or permanent residence permits, have one thing in common — the officials are using their power to obtain more than one identity.

A person with multiple identities can hide its wealth and transfer it abroad more easily. The disciplinary authority must watch out for the loopholes hidden behind different identity cases and deal a heavy blow on the illegal actions, says an article in the China Business News. Excerpts:

The case of an official who owned more than 100 houses in Guangdong, recently reported by the media, awakened the public to the fact that corruption around hukou and property are well beyond people's tolerance.

The State Council just approved the guidelines for an income distribution reform and vowed to combat illegal income. The houses owned by officials are an important target in that combat. Authorities must track down and thoroughly investigate those officials.

These cases prove that if China can really establish a system to disclose officials' property and increase the transparency of governments' spending and budgets, the combat against corruption will have immediate effects.

The cases linked to hukou and real estate property suggest that corruption in China is structural and that many departments such as public security, housing administration and also banks are involved.

The officials are almost fearless. There is no effective supervision, no taxes, and no restrictions on their power.

China has established a huge anti-corruption system from its Party disciplinary committee at various levels to anti-corruption bureaus. These departments together with the People's Congresses and judicial authorities are failing to regulate and monitor the exercise of power.

The system for officials to report their properties within the government was established as early as 1987. But that system is also failing.

China's decision-makers should draw lessons from these failures and reflect on why it is so difficult to fight corruption. But the fact that there are so many cases of corruption in the disciplinary departments indicates that the left hand will never punish the right hand.