"Corruption is the most dangerous cancer in the Chinese party-state today, and PRC media are replete with new revelations of official corruption at every level of the system. Not surprisingly, the military vanguard of the Party continues to be plagued by the same corrosive institutional corruption as the Party itself, despite divestiture from commercial operations in 1998 and eight intervening years of focus on rapid combat modernization. This article examines recent trends in Chinese military corruption, including the Wang Shouye scandal and the current PLA campaign against “commercial bribery.” It concludes that corruption in the PLA appears to have transitioned from a major, debilitating problem in the go-go days of PLA, Inc. in the 1980s and 1990s to a more manageable issue of military discipline in the new century. At the same time, the complicity of the military leadership in hiding Wang Shouye’s extraordinary extra-legal behavior until one of his mistresses forced its hand suggests that leadership has not institutionalized anti-corruption norms. Accordingly, military leadership analysis is a key element of understanding the depth and breadth of PLA corruption."
"So Crooked They Have To Screw Their Pants On: New Trends in Chinese Military Corruption"- from Hoover Institution’s China Leadership Monitor
More from the paper;
"Another Hong Kong newspaper published information about Wang’s case on the day after the Wen wei po article appeared, including many more salacious details though in a less authoritative forum.20 A Tung Fang jih pao article asserted that Wang had accepted bribes totaling RMB120 million (~$15 million), which allowed him to maintain multiple mistresses. One of these mistresses, an actress from a military region song and dance troupe, allegedly gave birth to an illegitimate child, and then demanded RMB3 million in compensation from Wang. Angered by his counter-offer of only RMB1 million and the refusal of the formal military apparatus to accept her child as a legitimate scion of Wang, the mistress in question allegedly began appearing outside Navy headquarters in Beijing every day to distribute leaflets. Unable to ignore the situation any longer, the military leadership ordered Wang Shouye arrested on 23 December 2005. The discipline inspection commission and the legal affairs bureau of the CMC jointly conducted an investigation, but the CMC handled the case in a low-profile manner, with only senior military personnel at the army-level and above allowed to read relevant documents. A final clue came in May, when Wen wei po announced that Zhang Zhannan had been appointed deputy commander of the PLAN, replacing Wang Shouye."
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