Why Hu’s anti-corruption drive doesn’t spare Olympics official

WHO

Last Thursday, vice-admiral Wang Shouye, 62, a deputy commander in China’s navy, was dismissed and stripped of his seat in Parliament. On the same day, Beijing detained a vice governor from eastern Anhui province on bribe-taking charges. This followed the sacking earlier this month of Liu Zhihua, 57, a deputy Beijing mayor responsible for urban development and Olympics projects.

The chairman of Capital Land, Beijing’s largest state-owned development company, also is being questioned by party investigators in connection with the case.

HOW

While the central government has waged repeated campaigns in recent years against official corruption, arresting thousands of officials and even executing some, officials of Liu and Wang’s rank are rarely removed.

Given the widespread corruption in China, the lack of a free press and scant information generally released about such cases, analysts say it’s difficult to pinpoint the motivation behind the latest series of corruption cases. This is particularly true, they add, given the blow to national prestige of having a scandal linked to the Olympics.

WHY

China, which is spending an estimated $40 billion to build sports facilities and upgrade infrastructure in advance of the 2008 sporting event, promised the International Olympic Committee the games would be corruption-free. All too often, the people fingered in scandals are not necessarily seen as being guiltier than others, but rather as being less protected politically.

Some people say either the deals surrounding the Olympics are so rife with graft that the leadership decided it had better act now rather than wait until even more global attention is focused on China as it gets closer to 2008. Others see Wang and Liu’s cases as largely symbolic steps designed to intimidate other corrupt officials and show the regime means business.

THE 6th WHAT NEXT

Some see the scandals manoeuvering in advance of next year’s 17th Party Congress as designed to eliminate or sideline potential opponents or their allies. Liu has been replaced as vice-mayor by Ji Lin, an official who rose through the Communist Youth League, Hu’s power base.