Nine in 10 downed China officials "had mistresses"
CHINA: Chinese anti-graft investigators have found that 90
percent of the country's most senior officials brought down in
corruption cases in recent years had kept mistresses, drawing a link
between sex and misconduct.
Mistresses and "second wives" are common among government officials
and businessmen in China and are often blamed for driving officials to
seek money through bribes or other abuses of power.
A report by China's top prosecutor's office said that of 16
provincial-level officials punished for "serious" graft in the last five
years, most were involved in "trading power for sex", along with
gambling, money-laundering and shady land sales to developers, the
Beijing News said on Monday.
"Nearly 90 percent kept mistresses, some keeping several," the paper
said. Among them were former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu, sacked
last year for links to a corruption scandal involving the misuse of
social security funds, and former Beijing vice-mayor, Liu Zhihua, fired
for taking bribes and helping his mistress "seek profit" while in charge
of Olympic venue construction.
China's former bureau of statistics chief, Qiu Xiaohua, had "not only
kept a mistress for many years, but also raised a child with her", the
paper quoted the report as saying. "Most of the corrupt officials had
come from humble origins and risen to their positions after years of
struggle," it said.
Beijing, Monday, Reuters. |