Rabbit Rabbit Draws Comics | “Political Liars” Seen Again

Anti-corruption is always on the way, and cracking down on political swindlers is also always on the way.

In recent years, the phrase “associating with political swindlers” has appeared more and more frequently in the disciplinary inspection commissions’ reports on fallen officials, becoming a noteworthy phenomenon.

The latest example is the report released on September 11 regarding the expulsion of Li Xu, former member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy commander of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, from the Party and public office. The report stated that Li Xu “engaged in speculation and profiteering, associated with political swindlers, and resisted organizational review.”

Two months ago, there were two more cases: one was Yang Renzhong, former vice chairman of the Guiyang Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Guizhou Province, and the other was Jiang Junwen, former director of the Hunan Rural Credit Cooperatives Union.
Even earlier, there was a long list of well-known officials who were reported to have “associated with political swindlers,” including Cao Guangjing, Gao Xingfu, Wulan, Duan Chenggang, Gu Zhaowen, Peng Guofu, Liu Hui, Wu Shenghua, Cao Qingyao, Guo Zhangcheng, Li Gang, and others, which was quite a spectacle.

The power of “political swindlers” seems astonishingly great. Even earlier, even Fu Zhenghua, former vice minister of public security and minister of justice, who should have had sharp eyes, was captured by “political swindlers,” and surprisingly, he had two “political swindlers” “serving” him for as long as twenty years.

So, what kind of creature is a “political swindler”? How can it be so powerful that it can deceive officials who are considered shrewd by ordinary people, and deceive them on a large scale?
On the websites of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission, there is a clear definition of “political swindlers,” which is transcribed as follows:

Political swindlers refer to individuals who disguise their identity by impersonating or fabricating information about leaders, their relatives, friends, close staff, experts and professors with special backgrounds, think tanks, or “masters,” or by fabricating graphic and audio-visual materials of leaders, fabricating experiences of interacting with leaders, spreading political rumors, creating internal information, or feigning to “connect people” to gain trust by offering political benefits such as “promotion and appointment” or “resolving cases,” and then seeking to obtain improper benefits such as economic gains and social status.

It then summarizes and analyzes the motivations for Party members and cadres to associate with political swindlers:
The subjective purpose of Party members and cadres associating with political swindlers is generally to engage in political speculation and opportunism, mainly manifested as: first, seeking promotion and appointments by “connecting with” influential people; some Party members and cadres are not content with their current work and attempt to “pave the way” for their promotion and job adjustments through the so-called “connections” of political swindlers; second, seeking help to “resolve crises”; some Party members and cadres, after violating Party discipline and laws, do not proactively explain the issues to the organization but place their hopes on finding political swindlers to intercede and try to evade punishment; third, other unhealthy political purposes, such as some who are more curious and associate with them to inquire about so-called “internal information,” some seek honors and awards, or political capital, some seek to satisfy their vanity by associating with the powerful, and create momentum for themselves, etc.

These descriptions may sound a bit dry, but if you have watched the anti-corruption documentaries led or participated in by disciplinary inspection departments, your understanding of the magical ecosystem between fallen officials and political swindlers will become vivid.

In the anti-corruption documentary “The Charge is Always Sounded,” there is a relatively detailed description of Fu Zhenghua associating with two political swindlers. The film states that Fu Zhenghua had extremely strong political ambitions and was determined to seek higher positions, obsessively “connecting with” high-level contacts. With such needs, two political swindlers took advantage of the opportunity.

The film introduces that the first political swindler serving Fu Zhenghua was named Li Quan. This person only had a technical secondary school education and presented himself as a senior strategist and scholar close to high-level officials. As early as 2003, Li Quan became acquainted with Fu Zhenghua. In reality, he had no high-level connections and relied on rhetoric to fabricate information, exploiting Fu Zhenghua’s weakness of being obsessed with power, and constantly feeding him the lie that he “could help operate promotions.” Fu Zhenghua believed Li Quan implicitly, and the two became bosom friends, with Fu Zhenghua willingly being manipulated by him for a long time.

The second political swindler serving Fu Zhenghua was named Shi Xiaochun. He was a retired cadre from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and had known Fu Zhenghua for decades. In 2018, Shi Xiaochun falsely claimed that he had special high-level channels that could help Fu Zhenghua seek promotion. Fu Zhenghua actively sought his company and treated him as a brother. Shi Xiaochun continued to make empty promises of promotion while using Fu Zhenghua’s power to handle matters for himself and his associates, receiving huge amounts of money and valuables in return. Shi Xiaochun himself admitted that he had no access to so-called high-level leaders and was merely deceiving Fu Zhenghua by exploiting his ambition.

In the documentary “Anti-Corruption for the People,” the story of Xu Wenrong, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Group and Deputy General Manager of China National Petroleum Corporation, and the political swindler Zhou Xianming is even more magical. If a movie were made based on this, it would surely be brilliant.

The film states that the political swindler Zhou Xianming was originally a contractor from Jilin with a technical secondary school education. He was skilled at building a persona in dinner circles, boasting about his connections with high-level leaders, and specifically targeting state-owned enterprise cadres who wanted to take shortcuts. In 2008, Xu Wenrong met Zhou Xianming at a dinner party. In 2011, when Xu Wenrong was normally transferred and promoted, Zhou Xianming falsely claimed that this promotion was due to his connections and efforts. Xu Wenrong believed him and regarded Zhou Xianming as a “benefactor” with extraordinary abilities.

Xu Wenrong was quite generous with sharing and introduced Zhou Xianming to several high-level executives of CNPC, including the then Chairman Wang Yilin and Deputy Director of the Consulting Center Gu Xuejin. A group of leaders treated Zhou Xianming as an honored guest. Gu Xuejin even used his authority to hand over the company’s informatization projects to companies designated by Zhou Xianming, and the two parties engaged in the transfer of benefits. After Zhou Xianming obtained the projects and profited, he transferred real estate and money to Xu Wenrong and Wang Yilin, binding multiple senior executives within the circle of interests. The film concludes that Zhou Xianming’s tactic was to build connections through dinner parties, package himself as having “high-level connections” with fragmented insider information, and continuously prey on cadres in the petroleum system.

You see, a contractor with a technical secondary school education, by relying on fabricated connections with high-level officials, actually played a group of high-ranking state-owned enterprise executives in the palm of his hand. This is truly a vivid footnote to the saying that reality is more magical than fiction.

After reading these two stories, what are your thoughts, dear reader?

The first thing that comes to my mind is Mr. Lao She’s play “Westward to Chang’an,” written in 1956. In this play, Lao She, based on a real case publicly announced in 1955 by Luo Ruiqing, then Minister of Public Security, tells the story of a political swindler. The swindler, named Li Wancheng, used his not-so-clever tricks to impersonate a hero, swindling his way from the Northwest to Beijing, obtaining money for plane tickets and living expenses, and infiltrating state organs. His swindling career ended three years later. “Westward to Chang’an” is likely the first, and possibly the only, film in the history of the People’s Republic of China to depict a political swindler.

Times have changed. 70 years have passed, and the political swindlers in Mr. Lao She’s writings seem insignificant compared to today’s. If Mr. Lao She were still alive, he would surely be amazed by the grand scale of today’s political swindlers. Today’s political swindlers have become more rampant and dangerous, their performances more absurd, and Mr. Lao She would undoubtedly sigh deeply about it.

The prevalence of political swindlers highlights the importance of public opinion supervision for a healthy political ecosystem. Fu Zhenghua associated with the political swindler Li Quan for over twenty years, during which time there was no shortage of laudatory media reports about him. If power were caged, and if media supervision were present, Fu Zhenghua would not have been promoted while ill, and his farce with the political swindler would have ended much earlier.

There is a resounding slogan: Anti-corruption is always on the way. It can be predicted that cracking down on political swindlers will also always be on the way.