David J Wong
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I’ve traveled a lot in China · Dec 3 ·
Why do you think China’s zero tolerance on corruption made China great today? I was spending a lot of time in China for business during the early 2000s. Corruption was a real and growing problem and dealing with it was a dilemma my team there faced on a regular basis.

You know it’s a problem when you meet with the son of a high ranking provincial government official and he starts complaining about corruption!

I was still traveling frequently to China as Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption started. I was very skeptical it would be effective because I viewed it as a ploy to consolidate power.

I’m still not convinced that wasn’t one of his goals, but one change I noticed immediately was at the 5* hotel I usually stayed at in Changsha. Prior to the crackdown, its restaurants and lounges were thronged with officials entertaining business
contacts and throwing expensive banquets. After the crackdown started, it stopped; the whole place was empty.

The other thing I noticed was thoroughness of the crackdown. A local business contact with whom I had negotiated a joint-venture due to his strong connections with the mobile industry was pulled in for lengthy interrogation by Public Security — simply
because his contact at China Mobile had been found guilty of corruption. The police were talking to everyone in his network. In fact, I was warned to stay away until things had blown over.

I suppose it’s a smart and pragmatic policy that consolidates power while at the same time dealing with a problem that if left unchecked could in time threaten the Party’s legitimacy.

I’ve seen the corrosive effect of corruption on countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia and the Philippines. Unless it is dealt with, it becomes endemic. It also gets worse over time. I think the clean up of graft was a necessary step in China’s
ongoing development. There’s still a ways to go, but it seems to be heading in the right direction.

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