2010-4-13
By Wan Lixin
SEVERAL recent occurrences serve as depressing commentary on the state of China's public servants.
One took place in Gushi, Henan Province, on March 25, when a company boss, a local bank chief named Min Zhitao, and a deputy county magistrate summoned four women to keep them company at a teahouse.
Min began to take liberties with three of them, and when stopped by the fourth woman, the banker began to turn his attention to the women who interrupted.
The banker then followed another woman to the toilet.
When he was rejected, he pushed her to the ground and began to grope her.
When the woman begged on her knees for mercy from the deputy county magistrate who was standing nearby, the magistrate remonstrated with her softly: "Lass, stop that fuss. Bank chief Min has good connections."
We cannot but marvel at the camaraderie between our civil servants.
Another incident also illustrating the strong bond between our officials is the case of Wang Yali, who before last June was the youngest member of the local People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy chief of the Communist Youth League in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province.
As a matter of fact, Wang has been found to have falsified nearly everything except her sex - her name, age, education, work experience and cadre status have all been forged.
Wang had rustic origins, but her fortune took an abrupt turn after she claimed nominal kinship with a rich local businessman.
Wang would have been in line for higher position, had she not brazenly claimed she was the daughter of a billionaire.
It was reported yesterday that a dozen officials who had helped her in her career have been disciplined or are facing criminal charges.
To ordinary Chinese dazzled by the high wages and perks associated with their servants, they cannot but suppose that coveted status can be achieved only after a rigorous selecting process.
Not so for someone who knows how to work the system.
Other evidence of officials' indulgence towards each other was found in the cover story on last week's South Weekend.
It reported that no local Party or government chief has been dismissed in the eight known cases over three years in which death was the result of forced relocation.
The victims committed suicide or were buried alive as their land was taken over.
Sharp contrast
In sharp contrast to our indulgence towards our servants is our officials' severity towards their masters.
It was recently reported that in Shiyan, Hubei Province, that citizen Peng Baoquan was detained by police on April 9 for having taken pictures of some people appealing to higher authorities to air their grievances.
Early next morning the police sent Peng to the local mental hospital.
In another case in Sui County, Shangqiu, Henan Province, on March 22, a peasant visited a township chief in his office to complain that his farm field had been misappropriated.
The peasant picked up a mug in the office to take a drink, but was stopped. He retorted and a scuffle ensued, resulting in his detention for a week.
A followup report in the Bejing News yesterday suggested that many other peasants have been detained on other occasions for complaints of land misappropriations.
In all these cases we sense a contempt on the part of our servants for the feelings of their masters.
There are strong suggestions that our servants are generally out of touch with their masters, and in the relatively few instances where real contact and touch occurs, it often takes place in an indecent, violent, suppressive, or fatal context.
View Shanghai Daily article...
Police officers walk past the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, where security is tightening ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit. Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
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