Why China's Leaders Are Reviving Mao's Legacy and "Red Culture" (Time.com)

Twelve-year-old Chen Le is a typical Chinese kid. He loves flying paper airplanes, plays Ping-Pong and dreams of becoming a scientist. And he aims one day to join the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so, as Chen puts it, "I can puff out my chest and say I am a party member." The public school that Chen attends in China's southwestern metropolis of Chongqing was renamed the Red Army School earlier this year to pay tribute to the soldiers who gave their lives to the People's Republic. "I'm very proud of my school's new name because the Red Army soldiers were tough and had a strong spirit," says Chen, a little crimson kerchief tied around his neck. "I want to be as red as they were."

This summer, China is awash in red. As the nation commemorated the 90th anniversary of the CCP on July 1, hundreds of millions of schoolchildren, officials, retirees and even top Internet executives joined voices to sing "red songs" praising the motherland. Cinemas have rolled out the red carpet for a blockbuster propaganda film about the creation of the party. Local governments have sent out text messages with pithy quotes from Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic, whose Little Red Book of sayings has for years been mere flea-market kitsch. (See pictures of China celebrating 90 years of communism.)

A Red Olympics with 200 teams was held with competitions like "Heroes Bombing the Bunkers" and "The Grenade Throw." Then there's the Red Army school program, which uses donations and other funds to instruct 1.15 million kids in academies named after the communist militia. "Our patriotism classes are even more patriotic than those of normal schools because loving our country is very important for our current society," says Fang Qiang, the secretary-general of the National Red Army Construction Project Council. "Our students all have a warm love for Chairman Mao."

Say what? Is this the same country that overtook Japan to become the world's second-largest economy last year, whose love of the free-market system has spawned thousands of books and created a whole industry of Western wide-eyed consultants? Indeed it is. Over the past three decades, the CCP may have replaced its founding revolutionary zeal with a turbocharged commitment to economic development; but the party has not managed to last for nine decades without a keen sense of survival. China's red revival might seem like a throwback, yet it is quite the opposite: a struggle for the future waged by the nation's leaders. As China's populace views its politicians as increasingly out of touch with a society beset by a widening income gap, the crimson tide is aimed at instilling pride in a country where there is no government but the party. "Looking back at China's development and progress over the past 90 years," said President Hu Jintao in his July 1 keynote speech, "we have naturally come to this basic conclusion: success in China hinges on the party." So that's clear. (See a gallery of the Chinese actors impersonating Chairman Mao Zedong.)

Leading the revival of attention to the CCP's history, myths, symbols and beliefs is an unlikely figure: Bo Xilai, party secretary of megalopolis Chongqing and the closest thing to a political rock star in China. In June, under Bo's directive, some 50,000 Chongqing residents flocked to a stadium to belt out red songs. Bo has replaced moneymaking commercials on local TV with red programming, and he has ordered cadres to the countryside to "learn from the peasants" - an echo of Mao's disastrous rural revolution.

All this is somewhat surprising. Bo's father was a famed communist contemporary of Mao, but he was purged during the Cultural Revolution. Bo, now 62, is hardly a revolutionary: he favors luxury cars and suits and sent his son to Harrow and Oxford. Prior to becoming Chongqing's leader, Bo earned praise in Western capitals as China's Commerce Secretary, ready to deal with the outside world. He doesn't seem the obvious type to sign off on scarlet billboards across Chongqing that urge residents to "spread mottoes" and "sing red songs." But sign off on them he did.

The Only Suitable Color
Look at China's political calendar, and a possible answer to the puzzle presents itself. Next year the CCP will begin a carefully composed, once-a-decade leadership transition as Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao ready themselves for retirement. As the jockeying for power gets under way, few want to be seen as anything less than loyal to a party that has ruled for 62 years. Bo has a good chance of being elevated to the hallowed ranks of the Politburo Standing Committee in the coming leadership reshuffle. His red fervor seems designed to help his cause.

See pictures of the largest military parade in China's history.

If politics explains Bo's zeal, he's chosen just the place to demonstrate it. Chongqing is a sprawling municipality of 30 million, and shares with only Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin a special status as a centrally run municipality. During World War II, Chongqing served as both the capital of the Nationalist government run by Chiang Kai-shek and as a base for the communists who were supposedly allied with Chiang in a popular front against the Japanese. (Chongqing's top red tourist attraction commemorates former jails where departing Nationalist agents executed imprisoned communist rebels.) Today, the river port is the investment gateway to China's underdeveloped hinterlands, and it is booming. Chongqing added 63 million sq m of new construction in 2010, 66% more than the year before. But with such growth have come social tensions. "Secretary Bo realized that people wanted more spirituality as Chongqing developed so quickly," says a Chongqing official who declined to be named. "So he gave them red culture in which they can sing songs and feel good."

Given that Chongqing has sold itself as China's reddest city, it's all the more puzzling that another city official I meet does not want to be named either. But I can see why when he begins his rhetorical somersaults. "There is a mistaken impression that red culture is just about the Chinese Communist Party," he begins. "That's not true. It also includes Confucius, democratic culture, Einstein, Shakespeare, even Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream.'" He then goes on to vaguely connect red culture to Michael Jackson. I question the Chongqing government's decision, then, to name its campaign after a color so associated with communism. With a smile, the bureaucrat, in his well-made clothes and expensive-looking watch, answers: "Well, you can't call it 'purple culture,' can you?" he says. "Or 'blue culture'? Other colors are not suitable." (See pictures of the making of modern China.)

Indeed not. But it is not only Chongqing officials who are searching for a guiding ideology - or hue. For all its successes, the CCP may be in the midst of a crisis. One day, China's long economic boom will, at the very least, slow down - planning chiefs are already scaling back expectations to 7% growth this year, after years of 8% or more. The risk for China's leaders is that, someday, they will not be able to depend on continuing increases in prosperity to buy acquiescence in CCP rule. Given that truth, it is little wonder that Bo and others who hope to one day lead China have fixated on a red-tinged spirit to unify the masses in these uncertain times.

And the times are uncertain. Even as Hu presided over a lavish 90th anniversary ceremony for the party in Beijing, he acknowledged serious problems. "The whole party," said Hu, "is confronted with ... lack of drive, incompetence, a divorce from the people, a lack of initiative, and corruption." From the leadership's standpoint, that does not bode well. Last year China saw 180,000 "mass incidents" ranging from labor protests to village riots, according to a sociologist at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University - a significant increase from the 74,000 officially reported in 2004. (See pictures of Hu Jintao's day at the White House.)

For a nostalgic faction in the Chinese leadership, it is the market-oriented economic reforms of Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping - which turned China into the world's factory - that are responsible for having allowed ills such as graft and income inequality to flourish. In national surveys from 2005 onward, Chinese have expressed progressively less satisfaction with their lives, even as their incomes have surged. "We can't stop divisions in society completely, but we can try to lessen the pain," says Fang Ning, director of the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "The central theme of red culture is to promote unity and equality in society. China has had economic growth. Now we want to pay attention to social growth as well."

The Elite Snickers
In Chongqing, Bo has introduced various social reforms, including a comprehensive public-housing plan and a tree-planting effort that is greening a foggy, gray city. But his red crusade is unabashedly old-style. Under the party secretary's orders, 200,000 government officials are being sent to the villages to listen to farmers' wishes and learn from their struggles, though it is not clear that the program has been a hit. "When government officials came to our area, they just played poker in the field," said one online commenter. Another alleged: "You have to offer the officials good wine, good food and good women."

See "China's Great Swindle: How Public Officials Stole $120 Billion and Fled the Country."

Following central-government policy to concentrate on the rural sector, which risks being left behind as China's coast races toward the future, Bo has vowed to raise Chongqing farmers' incomes by 10,000 yuan ($1,540) within three years. At the city's exhibition center, I am guided through the "Red Culture Resources Exhibition," where one display shows a middle-aged farmer feeding chickens in an orange grove. But we are the only visitors, and the whole scene has been crudely Photoshopped, though my guide assures me it depicts authentic rural happiness. The program may have a hard time convincing those to whom it needs to appeal. I ask Wang Hong, a farmers' son who moved to the city because he couldn't make a living in agriculture, whether he expects his family farmland to reap the dividends promised by the authorities. "No way," he laughs. "I can't see that happening in my area."

Indeed, Bo's red revival is facing something of a backlash. For some Chinese, the color red brings back the bad memories of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when frenzied Red Guards rampaged nationwide. The resurgent glorification of Mao, who even staunch supporters have grudgingly labeled "70% right and 30% wrong," has alarmed others. As the red-culture campaign reached a crescendo this spring, economist Mao Yushi of Beijing think tank Unirule Institute of Economics wrote an online essay blaming Mao for overseeing the deaths of some 50 million Chinese. The Great Helmsman was "a backstage orchestrator who wrecked the country and brought ruin to the people," the academic wrote. Censors quickly purged his comments. (See why China's economy may defy the doomsayers.)

In an increasingly sophisticated nation, crude propaganda won't cut it. In late June the Chongqing Daily ran the story of a cancer patient who survived chemotherapy thanks to a regimen of red songs. The Chinese Internet howled in derision. The urban elite would have snickered if they had been with me when I was taken by an official guide on a staged visit to Chongqing's Oriental Garden, a comfortable apartment complex not far from a Ferrari and Maserati dealership, and whose community center is adorned with portraits of Marx, Lenin and Mao. As we strolled in, residents crowded around computers open to Web pages on Chongqing's red-culture drive. An elderly man gave a lecture on the hardships endured by China's founding communists.

The East Is Red
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that none of these sentiments are genuine. For many Chinese of an older generation, "red" signifies an era in which equality and unity prevailed - or at least those virtues were cherished. To them, red culture denotes the blood spilled by communist soldiers and the selflessness of an idealistic generation of laborers and farmers. Wistfulness for this altruistic, can-do spirit infuses even young Chinese - who also recognize that a red affiliation doesn't look bad on a rEsumE. In 2009 the CCP welcomed 3 million new members; nearly half were university students. "We have great material conditions now, and we don't need to die for our country like the Red Army soldiers did," says Wei Zheng, a 22-year-old university student and party member from Hunan, Mao's home province. "So for me, red spirit means that I have to study harder and work harder." (See "China Takes on the World.")

Nor is there anything staged about the fervor of the 60 or so Chongqing residents, mostly middle-aged or older, who gather twice a week under a fig tree to belt out their favorite red songs. "The sun will never set on China," they warble before embarking on a rousing war march: "Enemies, wherever you are fighting from, we will find you and kill you."

The open question facing China is whether this backward-looking mood, with its celebration of the CCP, will resonate among those who have grown up in the 30 years since China has turned its back on Marxist economic planning and embraced the market. "These red songs teach very important values," says Yang Mingying, 60, a former teacher. "We cannot let the new generations forget that their happy lives today resulted from the sacrifices of all those Red Army soldiers." It's a universal sentiment: the old want the young to remember. But will they?

- with reporting by Chengcheng Jiang / Chongqing

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China's New Parochialism (Time.com)

On any particularly hot day this month, people around the world will do what they have done for decades: go to an air-conditioned movie theater and watch a summertime blockbuster. The latest, biggest movie is Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which has broken box-office records in the U.S. and in many of the 110 other countries in which it has been released. Except in the world's fastest-growing economy and movie market - China. The Chinese people will not get to see Transformers, nor the eagerly awaited new Harry Potter movie, nor any other Hollywood production. At least not yet. Gao Jun, the deputy general manager of Beijing's New Film Association, explained that no foreign movie would be allowed into China until the Chinese film Beginning of the Great Revival made 800 million yuan, or $124 million, which would be an all-time record for a Chinese movie.

Beginning of the Great Revival is a two-hour tale of the rise of China's Communist Party - released on the occasion of its 90th anniversary - and its heroic leader, Mao Zedong, who is played by a young Chinese heartthrob. The movie features a cast of hundreds of major Chinese actors, including Chow Yun Fat, with impressive sets and design, all at record cost. It has been released in 6,000 theaters across the country. But it doesn't seem to be winning hearts and minds. Despite many mass ticket giveaways, cinema houses are reported to be empty. A barrage of negative reviews on the Internet have been censored. On VeryCD, a pirated-film website, more than 90% of users described the film as "trash." (See a video of TIME's favorite Chinese movies.)

On one level, this is just a crude propaganda effort by a Chinese regime seeking legitimacy. But there is another aspect to this story. China is going through an internal struggle over whether it needs to borrow more ideas from the West or follow its own particular course. The question of how to handle Western films is becoming part of a much larger debate.

China is on course to become the largest movie market in the world. It has more than 6,200 movie theaters and is adding to them at the astonishing pace of three new theaters a day. But the government seems determined to keep Western movies at bay. There is a strict quota of 20 foreign movies imported every year. Those movies are censored and tightly restricted to a limited number of theaters. Hollywood studios receive only 13% of the ticket price, about half what they get everywhere else in the world. The DVDs are pirated within days, and the government makes no effort to stem this criminal activity. The result is that Hollywood, America's largest export industry, makes very little money in China. (See if Hollywood can afford to make films that China doesn't like.)

And Hollywood isn't alone. The CEO of General Electric, Jeff Immelt, told the Financial Times earlier this year that it appeared that China did not want Western companies to succeed in that country anymore; he was voicing the feelings of many foreign CEOs. There is growing evidence in many areas that Beijing is favoring locals over Western companies, even violating the rules of market access and trade. The World Trade Organization ruled recently that China's regulations on foreign movies were a form of illegal protectionism and had to end. So far, Beijing has done nothing to abide by that ruling, though it is likely to expand its quotas to mollify the WTO.

Countries play trade games all the time, but this is different. Over the past few years, a new Chinese parochialism has been gaining strength in the Communist Party. Best symbolized by the senior party leader, Bo Xilai, it includes a romantic revival of Maoism, harking back to a time when the Chinese were more unified and more isolated from the rest of the world. It is a reaction to the rampant marketization and Westernization of China over the past 10 years. Bo, who has organized mass rallies to sing old Maoist songs and routinely quotes Mao aphorisms, might well ascend to the Standing Committee of China's Politburo next year on the strength of this new populism.

After centuries of isolation, China has grown in power and strength because it opened itself to the world, learned from the West and allowed its industries and society to borrow from and compete against the world's best. It allowed for an ongoing modernization of its economic structures and possibly its political institutions as well. Its leaders Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin understood that this openness was key to China's success. A new generation of Chinese leaders might decide they have learned enough and that it is time to turn inward and celebrate China's unique ways. If that happens, the world will confront a very different China over the next few decades.

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China's New Wave of Digital Political Sex Scandals (Time.com)

By ZHANG YILAN / ECONOMIC OBSERVER / WORLDCRUNCH Zhang Yilan / Economic Observer / Worldcrunch – 2?hrs?28?mins?ago

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in the Economic Observer.

A new form of public entertainment has also landed in China: the digital political sex scandal. The starring role, as always, goes to a respectable, married middle-aged man in an important position. The script includes the usual wealth of spicy details to prolong the pleasure.

Take the hapless Xie Zhiqiang, director of Jiangsu province's Bureau of Health. Someone told him that e-mails and texting were old hat and that he should get into Twitter-style microblogging. They neglected to mention that his updates would be visible to everyone. Xie's communications with his mistress, a married woman, were laid bare for all to see, including the meeting time, hotel-room number and preliminary discussions of what they'd be busy doing. For the delighted readers, it was a carnival. Not only that, but Xie told his paramour to bring along any receipts she had so he could get them refunded. (See the top 10 Twitter controversies.)

The municipal government and the commission for discipline promptly intervened, immediately suspending Xie from his position and placing him under investigation for corruption. Online supporters expressed sympathy for the unfortunate bureaucrat, convinced he was truly in love with the woman, and just an idiot when it came to new technology. Some were even inclined to forgive his attempts to claim expenses with his dodgy invoices.

In another case, Liu Ning, a section chief in the local administration of the city of Guangzhou, got in the habit of joining Internet chat rooms in which participants are naked, but their faces are hidden. As you might guess, in Liu's case his face was clearly visible. Embarrassment is painful but rarely fatal.

Then there's the case of Han Feng, director of the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau in Guangxi province, who was using his elevated status to enjoy the favors of no fewer than six female subordinates. However, a disloyal husband should always beware of revenge. Han's private diary mysteriously found its way online, dripping with saucy details. After each encounter with one of his ladies, he wrote a blow-by-blow account - what he called his hunting bounty. These appeared on the Web, and became very popular reads. (Healthland: "Online Cheaters Still Prefer Real-World Infidelity.")

Going back to Xie's situation, while many Westerners would think right away of recently disgraced former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner, the Chinese thought first of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Looking back, we understand that in party politics, a President's moral flaws will be ruthlessly attacked by the opposition party. The U.S. Congress started impeachment proceedings, and the Republicans were eager to kick Clinton out.

But at a crucial juncture, Hillary Clinton saved her husband by publicly supporting him, so changing the minds of those who had been in favor of his ouster. Clinton kept his job not because Americans accept lax moral standards in their officials. On the contrary, because of the media muckraking in party politics, the public sets a very high moral threshold in selecting officials. And even more importantly, in the Clinton affair, this "philandering" President was not guilty of abusing his powers: Lewinski did not get a job in the White House after her internship ended. (See photos from the Anthony Weiner scandal.)

By contrast, Xie's affair has provided some conclusive evidence that this director-valentine offered to reimburse his lover's invoices for personal purchases. This is corruption. Most people who sympathize with him are basing their reasoning on their presumption that Xie is indeed corrupt, but not to an extreme degree. He was only trying to cheat on a few expense claims. The biggest grief would be that this kind of tolerance becomes the common public attitude.

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China's Gay Community Fights Online Censorship (Time.com)

When the Beijing LGBT Center screened a prerecorded lecture on gay-themed movies last year, the venue was so packed that latecomers had to jostle for a spot on the windowsills of the rented classroom doubling as their makeshift theater. This year, however, a similar event attracted only a handful of people, leaving much of the same room empty. The organizers soon realized their online announcements never reached the community. Soon after, other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups reported that their posts were disappearing from Douban, ostensibly one of China's most liberal social-networking websites. They have since banded together to boycott the site.

Douban, once a popular online platform among China's growing gay community, has yet to directly address the complaint. A spokesperson told state media that the company "doesn't welcome any remarks of discrimination and hatred toward race, religion ... or sexual orientation," but declined to comment further. However gay-rights activists see it as part of an on-again, off-again crackdown on the LGBT community. "My feeling is that the level of censorship right now has slightly improved from its worst," says Wang Qing, 26, a spokeswoman for the Beijing LGBT Center. "It's better than a month ago when they basically wouldn't publish any of our messages. Now they are letting through a selected few." (Read more about homosexuality in Beijing.)

This latest censorship saga underscores China's still-fluctuating stance on homosexuality. Since the decriminalization of gay sex in 1997, the Chinese government has come a long way in lifting some of the stigma associated with the gay community. Starting in 2001, homosexuality is no longer classified as a mental illness. And, over the past few years, several prominent gay clubs have emerged as a staple of nightlife in China's first-tier cities. Even in the state-run China Daily, a recent op-ed piece called for more tolerance of the LGBT community so that, it said, cities like Shanghai could one day be culturally on a par with New York City. When it comes to movies and TV shows, however, strict censorship still applies to homosexual content, which is deemed inappropriate for public consumption.

For now, Beijing's gay community is focusing on finding new ways to get their message out. Since the Douban boycott, they've resorted to alternative channels including microblogs, where their event announcements have successfully reached thousands of followers. But according to Wang, it may take a while for turnout to reach preboycott levels, since as many as 20% of active members had heard about the group through its website. Plus, publicity comes at a cost. "On the one hand, we definitely hope to reach out to more people, but on the other hand, we are worried that too much publicity will lead to unwanted attention from the government, which often means trouble for us," Wang says. (Read about China's actions regarding homosexuality.)

Indeed, few familiar with China's gay-rights movement can forget that the much-hyped Mr. Gay China pageant was abruptly called off right before it was set to begin in January 2010. More recently, a downtown Beijing shopping mall quietly cancelled its Valentine's Day kissing contest this year, allegedly after many gay couples had expressed an interest in joining the event. "The official reason for cancellation given by the mall was due to 'lack of participants,'" says Wang, "but clearly that's not true." In 2009, China's first gay-pride festival in Shanghai was interrupted by last-minute visits by the police, resulting in several movie screenings and performances being cancelled, despite earlier positive coverage in the state media.

Although no strangers to acts of repression, many Chinese gay-rights advocates find Douban's censorship a major frustration. "We all know that LGBT groups love Douban," writes Aibai, another Beijing-based gay-rights group, in an open letter to the popular website. "You once aspired to freedom, independence and equality, but now you have broken our hearts."

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How China's Public Officials Stole $120 Billion and Fled (Time.com)

By XIN HAIGUANG / ECONOMIC OBSERVER / WORLDCRUNCH Xin Haiguang / Economic Observer / Worldcrunch – 2?hrs?34?mins?ago

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in the Economic Observer.

Just how many corrupt Chinese government officials have fled overseas? How much money have they stashed away? And how did they manage to transfer abroad such colossal sums?

Last week, the People's Bank of China published a report that looked at corruption monitoring and how corrupt officials transfer assets overseas. The report quotes statistics based on research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: 18,000 Communist Party and government officials, public-security members, judicial cadres, agents of state institutions and senior-management individuals of state-owned enterprises have fled China since 1990. Also missing is about $120 billion. (See photos of the flooding in China.)

The People's Bank of China report stresses that until now, nobody has been able to provide an authoritative figure of the exact sum pilfered, and the figure of $120 billion is still only an estimate. It is nonetheless an astronomical sum. It is equivalent to China's total financial allocation for education from 1978 to '98. Each escaped official stole, on average, $7 million. But the real numbers might be even higher. Some media have reported that the wife of the deputy chief engineer of the Ministry of Railways, Zhang Shuguang, who was recently caught for corruption, owns three luxury mansions in Los Angeles and has bank savings of as much as $2.8 billion in the U.S. and Switzerland. This example gives a glimpse into the broader picture.

The number of corrupt officials fleeing China reflects the government's serious attitude about the crackdown on corruption. But if corruption, dereliction of duty and abuse of power are the norm, then the system itself is corrupt. The number also highlights multiple failings in China's embarrassingly ineffective anticorruption campaign.

It takes considerable time for an official to gain a large sum of money by corrupt means and then organize to smuggle it out of the country. Not being able to catch someone during this long time period is the government's first failing. (See photos of China's transit system.)

Next, when a corrupt official prepares his flight, he usually first sends his wife and children overseas while staying behind in China as a so-called naked official. To have such "naked" yet unexposed officials makes for a second failing.

In a country where capital outflow is strictly controlled, how on earth do these people manage to transfer their money overseas successfully? This is the third failing.

And the fourth failing: how they manage to change their identity. These crooks usually hold multiple passports and use many identities. For instance, the former governor of Yunnan province, Li Jiating, had five passports, all real.

The way they escape punishment is the fifth failing. Extradition involves the political and judicial systems of two countries, each with its own concept of law enforcement. The judicial procedure is often complicated and tedious. Extradition is very often obstructed by the fact that a person condemned to death in absentia cannot be extradited for human-rights reasons. In addition, China has not signed extradition treaties with the U.S. or Canada, the two most used destinations, so once the official has run away, the chance of catching him and putting him on trial is close to zero. (See photos of the panda people of China.)

Even if they do get caught, the stolen funds are rarely recovered. This is the sixth failing. The U.N. Convention Against Corruption sets out the principle of returning illegal assets, but the procedure is difficult in practice. Not only does China have to show that it owns the assets, but it also has to share some of the money with the countries participating in the joint action. After deductions here and there, there isn't much left.

And, finally, the seventh failing: the government officials who have managed to escape set an example for those still hiding at home. Some of them once held high positions with access to important state secrets and were likely bribed by hostile parties. This poses is a threat to China's political, military and economic stability.

It is for these reasons that it is more important to stop corruption at the source than to catch the culprits after it has happened.

Policies combating money laundering or obliging top government employees to report their personal wealth will not solve this problem. Nor will the close monitoring of naked officials. The effective solution would be to establish a clean system where nobody dares to be corrupt. Certain media have suggested the implementation of a property declaration system. This would be like using antiaircraft guns to fight mosquitoes. But at least it would be a weapon that knows its target.

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