Govindraj Ethiraj: Where China really fires its bullets

DOUBLE EDGE

The People's Republic of China awards the death sentence for, as I understand it, 68 offences, including, significantly, 28 non-violent crimes.

Most executions (China has more of them annually than the rest of the world combined) in the last decade or so have involved individuals convicted of murder, drug trafficking, fraud and corruption.

Numbers vary but external estimates put the number of executions at over 5,000 every year. China can be either very public or very secretive about this matter. Criminals are known to have been paraded on streets before execution. On the other hand, there are many, maybe separatists, of whom there is no clear account "" even whether they are dead at all.

Death sentences have been handed out to highway robbers cum murderers, currency counterfeiters, cheats and to those who deliberately started forest fires, according to reports. It's a pretty broad brief you might think. And yet, despite my best efforts, I have failed so far to locate any reference to a Chinese who had a bullet put into his head for "bluffing" or "betraying" his country, at least in the post-Mao era.

So I do wonder what or who NDA convener George Fernandes is talking about when he speaks of how if prime minister Manmohan Singh were in China, he would have had a bullet put into his head for "bluffing and beatrayal". I am also assuming the reference is to a post-Mao era. Those days, you could be "purged" for merely thinking capitalist thoughts.

Tempting as it is to go further down that path, this is not about Mr Fernandes' statements. Nor is it about expanding the scope of the death penalty in India. Actually, it's about finding out when and how China does pump bullets into the heads of its citizens. And how it might be worthwhile discussing what China really does rather than what Mr Fernandes claims it does.

Let me reel off a few illustrations, all over the last seven years. In March 2000, Hu Changqing, a deputy provincial governor from the southern province of Jiangxi, was executed for taking bribes worth some $660,000 and receiving property worth around $200,000. In return, he issued business licences and permits allowing people to move to Hong Kong.

In December of the same year, a court in south east China sentenced to death Yo Bufan, the head of an engineering firm in the port city of Xiamen. Bufan was found guilty of taking more than $500,000 in bribes.

Let's move away from corruption for a moment. Seven members of a gang of 12 involved in China's biggest bank-note counterfeit case were executed in 2000. Their specific crime was forging banknotes worth $77 million or 640 million yuan. The rest were given stiff jail sentences.

Back to corrupt officials. In 2005, Lu Wanli, the former head of the Communications Department of Southwest China's Guizhou Province, was executed for taking huge bribes, according to the Supreme People's Court. A dapper-looking man with silver grey hair, one of his last photographs showed the 61-year-old in the midst of a posse of police officials as he gazed ahead expressionless.

Lu took bribes worth $3.16 million from June 1998 to January 2002, when he was the provincial transport chief and general manager of the provincial expressway development company. Moreover, he could not account for another $3.27 million of property, according to the Supreme Court.

Perhaps knowing that trouble was around the corner and having planned a life abroad, Lu fled overseas in January 2002 using a false passport, but was later arrested and deported.

Incidentally, China is constantly on the lookout for corrupt government officials who have fled the country. Host countries do not always comply with deportation requests for such individuals particularly since they do not agree with the concept of death penalties for economic crimes.

And finally, last month, China executed Zheng Xiaoyu, its former head of FDA, for taking bribes to approve untested medicine. The execution came on the back of severe criticism against Chinese products with several companies recalling products or taking them off shelves. Beijing has announced a special taskforce to address this issue.

There are scores of such examples. Broadly, they reveal that China has had and continues to grapple with a massive corruption problem. Whose proportions have matched the heady economic growth numbers and the opening up of the economy.

I would think that we are not much better off. From officials who man octroi posts on highways to those who sign off on property registration to the big fish who hand out contracts. Surely, corruption is as endemic here. I've asked several Indians who do business in and with China. They point to some stifling export laws but mostly concur that it's much easier to do business and almost no corruption. At least compared to India, they say.

We don't seem to care as much, though. Interestingly, when quizzed about the death penalty for economic crimes in China, Gan Yisheng, head of the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said quite matter of factly, "We still execute people who have committed serious economic crimes on consideration of China's national condition and cultural background. I don't think we can be criticized for this."

I wonder then: What is our national condition and cultural background in this context? Guess we don't care about economic offences but we would surely put a bullet in the head of the head of state for bluffing.