ABSTRACT
Following the beginning of the post-Mao reform period in 1978–79, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) experienced a marked worsening of corruption. Although the pre-reform period was not free from corruption, a series of large-scale, mass campaigns during the 1950s and 1960s had largely driven corruption underground. Bribes were most often paid not in cash but rather in kind, with cigarettes, alcohol and meat being the common media. In the post-Mao period the scale of corruption increased exponentially as officials cashed in on their ability to manipulate the allocation of valuable resources, including land and capital, in return for bribes in the hundreds of thousands of Chinese renminbi. Moreover, whereas much of the corruption during the Maoist period took place at the ‘street level’ and involved relatively low-ranking officials, in recent years government ministers, senior bureaucrats, members of the provincial government and Party apparatus, and even members of the ruling Politburo have been prosecuted for corruption. Outside observers were so struck by the rapid spread of corruption during the 1980s and early 1990s that in 1995 Transparency International (2011) ranked China the fourth most corrupt country in its Corruption Perceptions Index. The following year China ranked sixth.
