Educate the corrupt - don't shoot them!

China's attempts to eradicate corruption took a directional step last week with the execution of former food minister, Zheng Xiaoyu. The direction of that step was backwards.
The fact that China acknowledges, at the highest levels, the need to wage war on corruption is right and proper. The subject is at the top, publicly, of President Hu's agenda, which is indication enough that the problem is serious. It will have the effect, eventually, of slowing investment into China. It will lead to a loss of confidence in governance and declining fortunes in the commercial sector - a definite, but less intentional, way to slow the economy.
I have heard people say the problem is too big; the country is too big; the population is too big and it's a way of life, so where do you start?
As with everything else, you start with education. Will this eradicate it overnight - no of course not. Neither can you, as some Western governments seem to think, transplant practices that work (or sometimes don't work) in their home country, immediately into China. Practices, I might add, that took several hundred years to "perfect".
So, in addition to ensuring the leadership leads by example, China must look for practices around the globe that can be adopted and adapted to their own needs. And where better for one idea than on their own doorstep; Hong Kong.
Although there are imperfections still, Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has been a serious force against corruption in Hong Kong since its establishment in 1974, to deal with a problem of corruption at that time. It is a model that has been adopted elsewhere, with success, and would be worth a serious look by China. The ICAC's presence in Hong Kong has to be one of the driving forces behind the fact that Hong Kong is regularly ranked as one of the least corrupt places in the world.
Oh, and by the way, we don't shoot the people who are caught!

Comments

[Sukyi]

We serve them coffee in Hong Kong.

[David Eldon]

You are correct to say the matter of capital punishment is another topic of discussion - and if we punish the people in charge, in that manner, for crimes against humanity as has happened in this case, we should perhaps start with considerably more prominent people than Zheng.
My comment "We don't shoot people who are caught" was to reflect the situation in Hong Kong.

[Anonymous Reader]

While I do not disagree that the ICAC in Hong Kong is something that China can look at as a success model, I am not sure if I agree that the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu was a step "backwards".

Addressing the extensive corruption problems in China will take more than the execution of a high official. However, to the extent that Zheng Xiaoyu was guilty of approving below-standard drugs - an act that showed total disregard to other people's lives, I personally thought that he well-deserved the punishment he received. At the same time, however the execution might also be politically driven, it should at least have some deterrent effect on other corrupt individuals.

You said "we don't shoot the people who are caught": are you suggesting that Zheng did not deserve to be executed, or are you suggesting that China's action to execute convicts too barbaric, and that no one deserves to be executed?

True - capital punishment does not exist in Hong Kong today, but the merits or otherwise of capital punishment seems another topic of discussion altogether!