I had made a lengthy post, but the Interwebs ate it, and I am in no mood to duplicate that much work, so here is the gist of what I wanted to say.
I think it is important to differentiate between 'graft' and 'corruption'.
The western democratic free press model claims to be good at cutting down graft, where officials pocket public money. I say 'claim' because India ticks all the right boxes but has graft far worse than China.
Corruption, especially political corruption, should be best defined as officials abusing their office and position for personal gain at the expense of the national/public good.
Now, China has a big problem with graft, whereby officials of all levels skim money off the top to line their own pockets. However, on the whole, the unwritten rule seems to be that it's tolerate for officials to skim a little so long as it isn't excessive and also so long as the project does not suffer because of it. That is because if corners are cut and something does wrong, pretty much everyone involved in the project are done for. The CCP disciplinary department will take a long hard look at all their careers and settle all their misdeeds, past and present. The Chinese have a saying for that, 'lao zhang xin zhang yi qi suan'.
While big screw ups still happen in China, they are not as common as you would expect given how the pervasive the graft is in the country, and every time there has been a big incident, top officials not only got the sack, but often went to prison and had their ill-gotten fortunes seized. Take the high speed rail crash as an example in point.
While inefficient, this linkage between performance and outcomes to personal consequence helps to make sure Chinese officials at least keep the big picture in mind most of the time, and there can be no question of personal interest standing in the way of national interest. To do so would almost certainly attract the disapproving notice of the powers that be. That is, incidentally, the main reasons why most Chinese career politicians have perfected the art of not standing out, because to stand out is to invite closer scrutiny and probably disgrace.
Compare that to western democracies which have in effect legalized political corruption and contrast is quite stark.
Horse-trading is the natural order of things, and politicians will laugh in your face if you were the PM or President and went to them and demanded they make personal political sacrifices for no reward in return simply because it would be good for the country.
It is also a rare thing indeed for anyone high-up to be held responsible even for obvious and catastrophic cock-ups, because everything is above board and everyone high-up is an expert at ass covering, or have professional ass-covers to make sure they cannot be held liable.
That is, of course a gross simplification, and there are many many other factors to consider and there are probable hidden costs and benefits to both systems, and one could devote an entire PhD Thesis to the subject and still only barely scratch the surface.
I had covered some of that, but as I said, the Interwebs ate it, but if you want to consider the topic more fully, I suggestion you also consider the following points:
- Legalizing political corruption actually share many of the pros and cons arguments as legalizing soft drugs like cannabis. Such as making it more transparent so you can better measure and account for it and control it, you can tax it, and forcing it underground makes it easier to lead to bigger related problems etc.
- Since international relations is based largely on horse trading, having leaders who are expects at it could get the country better deals in international negotiations.
- Systematic graft makes Chinese officials potential susceptible to foreign blackmail or manipulation.
- Cutting down on graft would be massively popular and western 'pass the buck' style ass-covering techniques could deflect public anger. Almost everyone I know who isn't a banker is massively peeved at the bail-out and especially at the fact that no-one seemed to have been held accountable or paid for this colossal cock-up, but their anger can't easily find a deserving target, so there is nothing to focus all that public rage, hence no mass demonstrations.
- The Chinese political system might be near undecipherable for outsiders, but insiders have surprising good information, and since China's leaders are all career bureaucrats, they will have a reputation within the party despite their best efforts, and as such, it is extremely unlikely that anyone too bad will get into a position of true power and authority because all the others will be able to see these people for what they are, and will not allow them to be placed in high office. Westerns like to point to the Bo Xi Lai scandal as an example of example of bad people in high places in China, or of high officials in China taking advantage of a situation to launch a purge etc. But I see it quite differently, as an example of how you can be taken down no matter how high you climb in China if you turn out to be a bad apple. Bo hid his true colors well for most of his life and career, but once he slipped, he was found out and taken down.
There were more points, but I forget.
The point is, the western system is not nearly as flawless as the west would like to believe, and China isn't as bad as many in China fears. As with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and there is no perfect solution to this problem.
Both China and the west can benefit massively if they learned from each other and tried to bring in aspects of the other's system to help address some of the problems and shortcomings of their own system. The critical difference seems to be that while China never denies that it has a problem and is, in theory at least, always looking for ways to tackle it's graft problem and improve upon it's system, the west seems to think their system is perfection incarnate, and would not dream of adopting anything from China.
In the long run, guess who my money is on to come up with the superior solution?
That, incidentally, also applies to political reform, but that is another story.
