Confess-a-bribe websites in China get Indian inspiration

The Business Times, June 14, 2011

(BEIJING) China's avid Internet users are taking a leaf from India's anti-corruption drama by opening websites so citizens can confess, sometimes in pitiless detail, to buying off officials.

Chinese people can be disdainful of poorer India, but some have sought inspiration from the anti-corruption anger that has swept the South Asian nation, fanned by the Internet.

Several Chinese confess- a-bribe websites, including 'I Made a Bribe' (http: www.ibribery.com), have been inspired by an Indian website 'I paid a bribe' (http:ipaidabribe.com), Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po newspaper reported yesterday.

'Stop seeking improper gains and promote equal competition, and return to us the dream of a fair China,' says the Chinese-language front-page of the 'I Made a Bribe' website. 'Please reveal your experiences of paying bribes so embezzlement and corruption have nowhere to hide.'

India ranked worse than China in Transparency International's 2010 survey of perceived corruption, with China 78th out of 178 nations and regions counted, and India 87th.

But the tales posted on China's new anti-bribery websites suggested that residents there have plenty to complain about.

China's ruling Communist Party regularly vows to stamp out corruption, but a long queue of convicted officials also testifies that bribery and illicit enrichment remain common.

On another new Chinese confess-a-bribe website (http:www.522phone.com), one businessman said he had paid 3 million yuan (S$571,000) to officials to win contracts, including taking a planning official on a 10-day tour of Europe.

'Don't think I'm trying to show off my wealth with this posting,' the businessman wrote. 'It's just I'm so toothless and helpless in the face of current-day society.

'We hate corrupt officials, but we're desperate to be recruited as officials. We hate monopolies, but wrack our brains to get into high-paying employers. We mock bent ways, but then try to pull personal connections to get our own business done.'

Other postings on the sites included stories of kickbacks for permission to sell medicine, underhand sell-offs of state-owned mines to cronies, payments of money and cigarettes to pass driving school, and 'red envelopes' of cash to doctors to ensure expectant mothers were well treated.

Reuters