Issues in corruption control in post-Mao China

This article examines two issues in corruption control in post-Mao China: a double standard of criminal justice and the politicized pattern of anti-corruption enforcement in the criminal justice system. The author makes two arguments. First, despite the widely publicized principle that officials, as communist party members, are held to a higher standard of conduct than ordinary citizens the criminal justice system has still punished corrupt officials less harshly than ordinary citizens who commit similar crimes. Second, anti-corruption enforcement has followed patterns of intensive campaigns that reflect shifts in political attention at the top of the system. These two features have undoubtedly contributed to public cynicism about the official effort to control corruption and have, in turn, hampered that effort.