Liu Zhijun must have thought his prospects for pension and plans for retirement were pretty good, not to mention his legacy. He had it all: the highest ranking post in a department that was fast making waves in the domestic and international news, and not for frivolous reasons either; his railway bureau had made a name for itself by quickly erecting a high-speed network that is the envy of many modern industrial countries; his salary was paid by China’s ruling Communist Party, the long-staying helmsmen of modern China, that (despite recent murmurs echoing the Middle East’s unrest) seems poised to remain in control for a long time to come; he himself was a prominent card-carrying member of the Party. So what went wrong? Revelations that made landfall like a thundering hurricane during the Chinese New Year holiday. Mr. Liu had been lining his coffers with illegitimate income; he was guilty of soliciting bribes; his gleaming achievement of high-speed rail for all of China’s citizens was built on the back of corruption. His biggest crime? He got caught.
The disgraced and deposed former minister is strung up over revelations that he accepted untold amounts of money while developing China’s forward-thinking overhaul of its national rail network. The firing came during the height of the Lunar New Year travel rush, a time when traveler’s nerves are jangled to the point of fraying, mostly due to overcrowding in travel depots across the country. Part of the problem in the logistical nightmare is that scores of counterfeit tickets get hocked outside rail depots, usually right under the nose of security and police. I’ve seen this in action. A scalper will approach the hopeful passenger before, after or during their attempts to purchase a legal ticket. Their methods aren’t intrusive, but they are persistent. If they don’t hook disgruntled passengers outside, usually unfortunate souls who’ve just been told that their prospective train is booked full, then they saunter through the queues of people waiting to buy their ticket home. If a policeman or security agent deems the scalpers’ actions too flagrant, they’ll persuade the scalper to leave the enclosure containing the ticket vendors. They’re usually rebuffed in firm but gentle fashion, and I’ve been witness to this charade repeating itself so frequently that its movements are almost balletic. The farce is even graceful in a sense.
The genuine concern over the railway system’s high-speed coming-of-age wasn’t so much the ticket scalping. More troubling is the behemoth’s unaccountable bookkeeping. No oversight in the railway bureau led to the illegitimate dispersal of rail tickets, no question about that; but it also paved the way to outright auctioning of some very lucrative contracts. Rail ties, concrete foundations, noise barriers, etc.; in short, all the components necessary for building up the nation’s new transportation backbone were up for sale to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, the railway bureau had marched their photogenic stewardesses and stoic engineers in elaborate shows of patriotic zeal during marquee holidays like National Day and Spring Festival. You could see the gleam in President Hu’s eye as the impressive float constructed for the televised parades rolled past, the choreographed salute coming as the procession marched past the politburo and the country’s supreme leaders. Was Mr. Liu, the sacked leader of the railway, standing on the podium behind the president and the country’s elite? There’s little reason to doubt it.
So in summary, the chief of a vastly important cornerstone of China’s infrastructure was running a corrupt house that reveled in nepotism and favoritism. Surprised? I didn’t think so.
New railway minister pledges forward movement in rail network
It might come as no surprise to many familiar with China’s inner network that Mr. Liu was committing the crimes he did. The blanket term used for his transgressions was ‘inappropriate conduct.’ Would another official have been less tempted to take supplemental income for himself? Who knows?
Now that question will play out, presumably with a few more watchful eyes than before. The staggering scale of the railway would put it in the category of ‘too big to fail,’ no doubt. The man charged with steering the railway in the right direction remains steadfast in his pledge to bring it forward, completing a web that already covers thousands of miles and connects nearly every major city throughout the country from tail to snout. The all-important factor on the minds of the average traveler isn’t integrity from the top down, but rather how all the posturing will affect ticket prices. There’s little doubt among riders that next year’s ticket prices will be even higher, and crowds at train stations won’t be any thinner.
China certainly won’t encourage more people to buy cars. In fact, it currently takes measures to dissuade citizens from buying new cars. The new railway chief faces a delicate predicament, and I for one don’t think it’s best remedied by typical stubbornness and ambitious ideals on the part of the government. Firing the corrupt Mr. Liu was a step in the right direction, but perhaps it’s time to slow things up a bit and divert funds to other more pressing issues.
Rory Keane is an American-born teacher and writer who has logged nearly two years in China, and is working on another year-long stint in the Middle Kingdom. He writes about travel, sociopolitical issues, health, entertainment, and culture, among other topics.
