Group Wants Probe Of China’s Leaders Intellectuals Say Billions Lost To Corruption, Demand Reforms

A dozen prominent intellectuals Saturday formally petitioned China’s parliamentary bodies to conduct an independent investigation into corruption in the Chinese leadership.

The surprisingly bold step by a group that includes two former top editors of The People’s Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, represents a significant challenge to party leaders as they prepare for the death of Deng Xiaoping and an unpredictable period of political transition.

The petition appeared as more than 4,500 delegates to the parliamentary bodies are assembling for their annual sessions at a time when there are tensions over trade and human rights with the United States.

The presentation of the 2,000-word petition marks the first time in a year that an organized group of scholars, writers and former Communist Party members have joined together to call openly for sweeping democratic reforms. Their assertions indicate that despite continuing repression, advocates of democracy remain determined to press political reforms on the collective leadership that has been installed by Deng, China’s paramount leader.

The petition says the only permanent solution to corruption is the establishment of a constitutional democracy with independent legislative and judicial branches that would supervise government operations and police the conduct of the Communist Party.

“Corruption, in the form of trading power for money, has become the principal affliction causing great public resentment and capable of leading to social upheaval,” the petition states.

Citing government statistics showing that Communist Party officials annually spend billions of dollars in public funds giving banquets for one another and billions more buying luxury cars for private use, the petition said an “absence of values” and a “collapse of faith” had led to a “poisoning of the nation’s soul by political corruption.”

The list of signers includes Wang Ruoshui and Wu Xuecan, both People’s Daily editors removed for their pro-democracy views. It also includes Chen Ziming, a leading dissident who was released from prison in May under pressure from President Clinton and who is now under house arrest.

Western diplomats here, many of whom express consistent alarm over growing corruption, said the 12 signers had taken a substantial risk of arrest and persecution given the repressive political climate as China awaits the death of Deng, who is 90 and whose health has declined significantly in the last 12 months.

Repression in China is expected to be debated early next month in Geneva at the U.N. Human Rights Commission, where the United States and the European Union are co-sponsoring a resolution criticizing Beijing’s human rights record. China is seeking to block the debate.

Corruption has become a pervasive problem in China at all levels of government.

In August 1993, President Jiang Zemin opened an anti-corruption drive, warning that “the corruption phenomenon is a virus that is invading the healthy flesh of the party and state institutions.”

Many Chinese were cheered when Jiang told the Central Discipline Inspection Committee on Aug. 21, 1993, that “if we lapse into softheartedness, if we allow it to run rampant, it could spell an end to our party.”

But with few exceptions, the 18-month-old anti-corruption campaign has conspicuously exempted high-level party and military officials from the target lists of prosecutors.

Yet there are widespread popular perceptions of corruption in the ranks of senior party cadres and their children.

“The anti-corruption campaign has been sacrificed in the name of party unity,” a Western diplomat said.

The dissidents’ petition was delivered this weekend to the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, whose annual sessions open this week.

The two bodies are presided over by Qiao Shi and Li Ruihuan, respectively, both members of the ruling Politburo’s standing committee.