Government corruption is, or should be, a scourge in any government. We’re faced with it on a daily basis, we know it exists and we know something needs to be done. What is done and how it is done, determines the validity of our government’s commitment; if they are not stamping it out or at least attempting to reduce it, then they are failing the people who put them there – the voters.
China is often described as authoritarian because it constantly works against corruption, there is an entire branch of government, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) dedicated to stamping out all forms of corruption at all levels and, as Xi Jinping pointed out in a recent speech to the Commission at their fourth Plenary Session, it’s an ongoing and relentless task. In other words, if any government takes its eye off the ball, corruption will resurface. Where there is power vested in ordinary people, some of them will do extraordinary things. Some will rise to the top some will fall from grace. The inevitability of this is obvious.
The difference between China and the West in this respect couldn’t be more stark. The constantly improving infrastructure, lifestyle, wealth, education and health of Chinese people bears out the fact that a clean and corruption free government is the best way to go. It’s also reflected in the support that the government gets from the people who put them there. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, that support in China is over 90%, while the USA is pleased to announce a moderate increase in trust up to the lofty heights of only 22%. What causes this low level of trust in governance? Corruption.
So, when media organisations such as the Voice of America criticise China for the length of time it’s taken to weed out corruption, they’re missing an important point. It’s never going to be weeded out, it really is like a garden which can flourish if the work is put into it, but will constantly produce weeds, no matter how much work is done. What is really important is that the work IS done and in this respect, China’s approach excels over Western governments.
Australia, has demonstrated a complete failure to take action on corruption, the UK is no better but the USA doesn’t have corruption, it has legalised it, encourages it and exists at a governmental level entirely because of it.
Anthony Albanese, was elected Australia’s PM, three years ago, on a platform of creating a new, federal, anti-corruption department, and, to his credit he did so by creating the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). But what needs to be considered here is not that he did so, but that it was necessary for him to do so. Australia has been a Federation since 1901, effectively the date a group of colonies became one country. And until 2023, there was no Federal Government oversight, no anti-corruption watchdog at all.
Some might argue that the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI) served the purpose, but it didn’t, it had no power to investigate allegations of corruption against elected Members of the Federal Parliament and, while States had their own anti-corruption arrangements, there was limited means to protect the public against corrupt federal politicians. These limited means included the parliament itself, the Auditor-General, the Ombudsman, FOI and other administrative laws (which often don’t help against government corruption, bearing in mind, it’s the parliament which writes these laws).
As far as many of the Australian public are concerned, the NACC has let us down. By deciding not to pursue prosecutions in several major cases, the “Robodebt” scandal, an illegal automated system of government debt collection, described by a Terry Carny, a professor of Law, as: “by far the Australian government’s most catastrophic policy failure in its history. Another one is the “Paladin” scandal over the awarding of a $532 million dollar contract to a person under investigation who was ultimately convicted of offering bribes.
Despite massive national confusion about why the government would purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of submarines that they appear not to need, AUKUS has gone uninvestigated: why we have it; who benefits from it; what costs will be needed to implement it; or even if it will ever happen? The lead proponent of it, former PM Scott Morrison, has left Australian politics, and indeed Australia itself, for a plum (related) job in the USA. Unbelievably, Morrison told The Australian Newspaper “he will also take up a role as a strategic adviser to DYNE Maritime, an Australian-founded, US-based venture capital company that invests in technologies related to the AUKUS pact.” If that doesn’t smell of a situation in need of investigation, then nothing ever will.
The UK, has it even worse. Years of Conservative governance brought the UK’s Transparency Index to a point where the perception of corruption in governance in 2024, was at the lowest point in the UK’s history. Despite promises to do so, under his Prime Ministership, Rishi Sunak never created a department, or appointed an anti-corruption officer. In December last year, the (new) Labour government finally announced an Anti-Corruption campaign but not to oversee the government, this one is for international corruption to oversee illicit trade and eliminate such things as illicit finance which helps fund terrorism.
Thousands of people in the UK have been convicted of Coronavirus related offences but not one of them is a government officer convicted of corruption, despite there being ample evidence that such corruption existed. In fact, the situation was so bad that, in 2022, Robert Barrington, Professor of Anti-Corruption Practice at the Centre for the Study of Corruption in the University of Sussex said of Boris Johnson’s government: “There is more corruption and corruption risk in and around this government than any UK government since the Second World War. Yet, to date, not one person working in that government has faced charges.
The USA, the source of most of the misinformation on China’s anti-corruption practices, is perhaps the worst example of all. A twice impeached and convicted felon will enter the White House in a few days. He will head up a government which has actually legalised the seeking of money for political favours and called it lobbying.
He rejoins a long list of people who have enriched themselves from the office but, unusually, didn’t come from the same source as his predecessors. He did not work his way through the Senate or Congress where legislation is passed not for the benefit of the people who voted to put them there but for donors, some of whom have “invested” hundreds of millions of dollars to help their preferred party and who of course, would like a return on that investment.
Then there are the lobbyists. These are people who make donations to campaign funds for re-election, the job of a lobbyist is to influence the decisions of policy makers. It’s clearly obvious to even the most obtuse amongst us that decisions will be much more heavily in favour of people making donations of tens of thousands of dollars than individuals who have but one vote to cast every 4 years.
Whilst this is obvious to all, it took an academic study to provide the proof needed, Princeton University (unsurprisingly) established in 2014 that “affluent individuals and business corporations have vastly more influence on federal government policy than average citizens” and the situation has not improved since then, in fact, it’s worse.
Hardly a surprise that lobbyists have worked so hard to make lobbying legal, nor that the recipients of all the funds they have at their disposal have helped with legislation that supports their many causes. What’s not a surprise at all is that in China, lobbying, corporate, individual or any other kind of donation to a government official or a candidate for any election, is considered bribery and punishable by law and, as Western media point out, China makes full use of that law to weed out corruption and punish individuals responsible.
Jerry Grey is a former British Police officer who was a general manager in a multi-national security company based in Australia for 17 years. He has lived, worked, travelled extensively and studied in China for almost two decades. He holds a Master Degree in cross cultural change management. Jerry Grey is a freelance writer living in Southern China's Guangdong province.
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