Chinese soccer stars were expected to be at the training ground this week in preparation for the Asian Cup in Qatar.
Instead, their practice regime featured state media featuring former coaches and other sports executives repenting of match-fixing and bribing opponents and accepting cash payments to earn spots on the national team. included forced viewing of television programs.
The soccer exposé concludes a four-part CCTV series on China’s anti-corruption campaign broadcast in prime time to China’s 1.4 billion people this week, as President Xi Jinping’s signature anti-corruption crackdown marks his 20th year in office. revealed how it is expanding.
It also sparked criticism that China’s Communist Party leadership has long sought to divert attention from the systemic roots of corruption in the country.
In addition to the failures of China’s soccer administration, the series, titled “Continuing Effort, Deepening Progress,” also reveals that local government debt has ballooned to trillions of dollars, a burden that is now threatening public finances at the provincial level. The responsibility of the government officials was increased. Stability of the world’s second largest economy.
It also spotlighted the takeover of senior officials at China’s central bank, which has been increasingly taken away from policy-making as the Xi government centralizes party control over the financial system.
The new push to fight corruption comes as Chinese policymakers seek to restore confidence in China’s ability to strengthen a fragile economic recovery that has not picked up pace since pandemic-era restrictions ended a year ago. It is being carried out in
One episode of the documentary focuses on Li Zaiyong, former Communist Party general secretary of Liupanshui, a coal-mining city in southwestern Guizhou province. According to state media, during his term from 2014 to 2017, Li funded tourism projects, including a “vanity” ski resort in nearby Meihuashan, an area unsuitable for large-scale winter sports. It required the city to borrow more than 150 billion yuan ($21 billion) to do so. sightseeing.
According to a confession aired on the show, Mr Lee’s decision to spend money equivalent to the city’s entire GDP was motivated by political ambitions.
He said he wanted to “in a big way” attract the attention of his bosses and move up the ranks of the party. “I will never rent it.” [that much] “If it were my own project,” he said. “I plan to leave the position in a few years. The person who takes over my role will be responsible for the debt.”
Such financial mismanagement partly helps explain why Guizhou had a debt of RMB 1.2 trillion (about $168 billion) by the end of 2022.
Another target, former People’s Bank of China Governor Fan Yifei, detailed how he accepted bribes under the guise of “investment projects” and “financial products” and hid cash through a shell company owned by his brother.
“Even if a businessman sends money to my office, I won’t accept it,” Huang said. “But if, for example, he was gifting stock, and he gifted it to my family instead of directly to me, that would be a different story.”
Qianlong, an official of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission, a deeply feared party watchdog, said that Fan is the subject of an investigation and will resign from the central bank in 2022, using financial market rules to cover up illegal activities. He said he was doing so. and trades his influence for wealth.
“I want to become a government official and at the same time, I want to be rich,” Huang said. “Now I realize that was very wrong.”
David Bandurski, director of the China Media Project and an expert on Chinese propaganda, said the series, which depicts allegedly corrupt officials being scammed out of their wealth, is a way to glorify party leadership and governance. He said it followed a “very common pattern” of demonizing individual officials. .
“Always gold bars and Moutai wine”[Chinese liquor]. . . All of this serves to distract from the systemic aspects of corruption, how the failure to put in place real checks and balances has made corruption inevitable,” he said.
China’s propaganda machine and legal system also often rely on confessions, which experts have long criticized as coerced.
Since Mr. Xi took over as leader of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, China’s anti-corruption investigations have targeted millions of so-called tigers and flies, or high-ranking officials and low-ranking bureaucrats, with the dual aim of eradicating corruption. has fulfilled its purpose. eliminate rival political factions.
The TV series aired as President Xi warned China’s businesses, state and Communist Party apparatus about corruption this week in a speech published in state media on Monday.
On Wednesday, the disciplinary committee released a wide-ranging communiqué, saying Xi’s long-running anti-corruption campaign demonstrated the party’s high degree of “self-purification.” He added that investigations would prioritize China’s financial, agricultural and pharmaceutical sectors, as well as state-owned enterprises. Universities, sports and the tobacco industry were also named for scrutiny.
The statement also highlighted irregularities in government statistics, which the Ministry of Justice had previously warned would undermine trust in the government.
Bandurski said that while the CCTV series highlighted real fraud, “the real corruption lies in the nature of the system.”
“An anti-corruption campaign in China is always a propaganda campaign,” he said. “Corruption is endemic and empowered by a system with little structural accountability and heavy political bargaining.”
The penalties handed down to many of the suspects, including Mr Lee and Mr Hwang, have not been made public. But many officials close to the watchdog’s eyes have rushed to demonstrate their commitment to stamping out corruption.
Guizhou provincial authorities issued a notice on Wednesday to crack down on new investments. The Discipline Inspection Leadership Department vowed to study President Xi’s instructions with “all its heart and soul.” After seeing the former national team coach admit his guilt, China’s top soccer players each wrote 1,500 word essays expressing their remorse.