China and Taiwan: Two Chens face two systems

Corruption is such a grave problem in China – from the village level to the Communist Party Politburo – that it is no longer a taboo subject. Ren's department is one of nearly a dozen such study groups around the country, advising party leaders on how to root out corrupt practices.

The problem, Ren says, is that only the biggest cases are pursued. Since party officials at all levels enjoy the protection of somebody at a higher level, any investigation of one man is seen as an attack on his patron, who can generally block the initiative.

That means that corruption investigations are also inevitably political weapons, wielded to destroy opponents. Suspicions about Chen Liangyu first surfaced three years ago, when President Hu Jintao apparently did not feel powerful enough to launch an open attack on a protégé of former President Jiang Zemin.

"Now he does have the power," says Ren, who believes the Chen case presages political reform driven by the top party leaders.

Other analysts are less optimistic. "Trying to use the party's supreme power to control corruption in the party is like trying to lift yourself up by your hair," says Li Datong, former editor of a Communist Party publication, who was fired earlier this year for publishing a controversial article. Only a separation of powers and an independent judiciary can tackle the problem, Mr. Li says, though he expects neither development soon.

Taiwan's experience offers a salutary lesson, suggests Yang. It was the Kuomintang dictatorship's reputation for corruption that largely led to its downfall, he points out, and after nearly 50 years as the sole legal party, it was obliged to gradually liberalize Taiwan's political system.

"The Communist Party will inevitably have to follow the Kuomintang's steps," predicts Yang. "They are fully aware that a one-party system involved in corruption will topple the regime eventually. They witnessed the Kuomintang fall."

There are no signs yet, however, that Beijing is ready to countenance democratic reforms. More likely in the shorter term are changes to make investigative organs less dependent on their immediate political superiors, suggests Ren.

In Taiwan, meanwhile, where the president's wife is due to go on trial later this month, it is unclear how the case will go, and whether judges would dare to find her guilty.

Both government officials and opposition figures express doubts about the courts' independence from politicians, but this, they say, is the judges' opportunity to prove their critics wrong.

"Whenever the judiciary has faced people with power, it has bowed to the crown," says Mr. Shih. "But this is the first time a member of the first family has been prosecuted. Is this a one-off, or the beginning of something that will become normal?

"If I live to see an independent judiciary in Taiwan," he laughs, "I will go to my grave happy."

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