China__Harlots_More_Respected_Than_Officials

China at 60: Prostitutes more Reliable than Communist Party --Dr. Yukteshwar Kumar Confucius said: “Sanshi er li, Liushi er ershun” (At thirty, I stood up while at sixty, my ear became an obedient organ for the reception of truth). People’s Republic of China is turning 60 today and let us assess how obedient its’ ear is today, or in the coming 60 years, it will continue to propagate itself with the fibbed tantrums and half baked truth with a deaf ear, reluctant to hear naked realities bytes. 60 years ago, on 1st October, Mao Zedong proclaimed from the ramparts of Tiananmen, “Zhongguo renmin zhan qilai le” (Chinese people have stood up) but in reality, Chinese had not stood up till 1979, till it had turned 30 as Confucius had rightly remarked several hundred years back. In the first 30 years, China was ravaged with famines, border wars with almost all its neighboring nations, incorrect policies of the great leap forward and the great proletariat cultural revolution in which more than 36 million people were prosecuted and several hundred thousands petit bourgeois, small chieftains, petty landlords and intellectuals were murdered. Many committed suicide and the prominent among them were--Lao She, the great novelist and story writer. “Beggars were also needed to be killed, because they did not live on their own labor”, Mao Guangrong, an octogenarian recalls the first three decades of the new China in his recent interview to the Guardian. Owing to autocrat Mao’s incorrect policies, more than 20 million people died during that time and Chinese economy was in tattered shape. Economic output fell by over 30% and the architect of the modern China, Deng Xiaoping while referring to this period said, “It had created an entire generation of mental cripples”. Till 1970’s India was doing far better than China in most of the economic parameters and a former Indian envoy had then said, it will take years for Beijing and Shanghai to match Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai. Today, leave alone talking about any Indian cities, Shanghai has more skyscrapers than New York and London combined together. China towers over India not only in infrastructure, GDP or economic growth but in almost most other human indexes. In the next 30 years, thanks to its reform and open door policy of 1978-79, China has done wonders on the economic front. It is tipped to become the second largest economy in the whole world by the end of this year leaving Germany and Japan way behind it. However, all is not well with the country and corruption is one of the biggest headaches for the communist regime because in a recent survey majority of Chinese people ascertained that harlots and prostitutes were more trustworthy than the government officials. I must mention here that this survey was not made by any adverse foreign media which could have been easily termed by the Beijing authorities as “Spitting venom against China” but by their own Xiaokang (Health) monthly, a sister publication of the bi-monthly Qiu Shi (Seeking Truth) -- the mouthpiece of the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Hence, one must take it seriously. The survey revealed that the five most trustworthy social groups in China in descending order were: Peasants, religious workers, prostitutes, soldiers and students. According to the poll, the five least credible groups in descending order were real estate developers, government secretaries, brokers, performance stars and government directors. Trust in central government officials has lowered from 60.1% in 2005 to 95.2% this year. Their reliability in local government has lowered from 59% to 70.2% and they accuse the local party officials for not reporting truth but only the distorted version of it to earn promotion and accolades from their senior party leaders. According to the survey, more than 42.12% respondent said they did not believe the central government officers much, 31.17% said they did not believe them at all, 21.72% showed very little trust in them while only 4.98% trusted them completely. Hence, it is not surprising that when a six year old student was recently interviewed by the Southern Metropolitan Daily reporter about her aspiration after growing older, she naively but blatantly said, “to become an official”. After further being asked of what kind of officer' “A corrupt official because corrupt officials have a lot of things”, she explained. Her interview is still available on Youtube and Youku, which considering the Chinese media censorship, where facebook, twitter, fanfou and sometimes even gmail is blocked, is a surprise for me. Many bloggers further remarked on this interview that “the ugliness of graft, corruption and life has already tainted young Chinese mind”. “Socialism has issued a new version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, said another posting. Even the Chinese President, Hu Jintao has openly remarked that that corruption is one of the greatest threats to the legitimacy of the Communist Party rule. Under these circumstances, the central government seems to be more determined now to tackle the issue of bribery, graft and corruption though. During the 4th plenary session of the 17th CCP Central Committee meeting which was concluded last week, “clean government” was the main theme. According to another communist party mouthpiece, Liaowang (Outlook Weekly), party authorities were clearly aware that corruption among cadres had seriously affected the party’s image and it was the phenomenon with which the masses were most dissatisfied with. Graft has been woven intrinsically into the basic fabric of Chinese society from top to bottom and my Indian friend in China said, he could not understand the mystery of becoming millionaire, overnight of some of his corrupt Chinese officer neighbors. The Communist Party of China has also announced last month that it was investigating a member of its ruling authority, the party’s Central Committee, apparently for corruption in the nation’s nuclear industry. Xinhua reports stated that one of its chief officials, Kang Rixin, was suspected of embezzlement and bidding irregularities related to the construction of nuclear power plants. Corruption in China has been rampant and in 2008, China was ranked number 72 out of 179 countries, from least to most corrupt, in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Prominent Chinese corrupt officials range from top CPC Shanghai Committee Secretary, Chen Liangyu to the former Beijing mayor Chen Xitong. Chinese government has also dealt very harshly with the corrupt leaders and several of them have been executed. Less than two months back on 7th August it executed Li Peiying, former head of a huge state-owned, Capital Airports Holding Company, six months after he was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges involving more than $14.6 million. China has earlier also executed many leaders who held very high public office up to the level of Governor of a province. Many remember Mao Zedong, albeit, on the eve of this day, not only for liberating them 60 years ago, but terming him to be the right leader for being very harsh with the corrupt officials. Despite accusing Mao for his blunder of highly incorrect, over ambitious policies, people in China still venerate him for being a complete ruthless personality to graft and bribery. Many of them are also clamoring for declaring his Birthday as the national Holiday. But can Mao be as great as Gandhi to be declared his Birthday as National holiday' Perhaps never! The article was published on SIFY: http://www.sify.com/news/china-60-harlots-more-trusted-than-party-news-columns-jkmniijjhgb.html (Dr Yukteshwar Kumar is Course Director of Chinese Stream at University of Bath, United Kingdom. Before joining University of Bath, Dr Kumar taught at premier Indian universities like University of Delhi, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan and JNU in different capacities. He has also served as a Nehru Fellow at Peking University, China (1999-2001) Probably the only Indian today to teach Chinese in a top western University, Dr. Kumar has also interpreted for top Chinese and Indian leaders including the Chief Justices of India and China, the Foreign Minister of China, and the Chief Ministers of Bihar and West Bengal. He has also contributed numerous articles in both Chinese and English for various English and Chinese papers and journals and is the co-author of a book on learning Chinese.)