Last week it was reported that the chief of China's railway ministry had been suspended on suspicion of taking bribes. But he is just one of the hundreds of millions of Chinese who supplement (or vastly exceed?) their monthly salary in this way. But the government departments only showcase their high profile catches, as evidence to the populace that corruption is being tackled.
However, these public humiliations are meaningless when it is a way of life for almost everyone in China. All this does is bury the problem deeper and force people to be more clever/sneaky in the way they do it.
A colleague visiting Shanghai last week asked me how, if everyone really WAS on the take, was our company driver creaming off the top? Following a few days of close observation, it seems he can take in three different ways:
1. He falsifies the mileage on his written report each day (so allowing him additional private use of the car at our expense). I caught him today.
2. He falsifies the start and finish times each day, adding a few minutes where he can (so allowing him additional over-time payments.) I caught him yesterday.
3. Siphoning petrol out of the tank, so enabling him to resell some of the petrol paid for by us. I do not yet have proof of this last one, but our petrol consumption appears excessive versus the (true) mileage, and so going forward I will fill the car up myself and will note the mileage at each fill up
I really should not be surprised. I have lived here long enough to know that if there is a Chinese expression for something, then it really IS endemic:
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