Targeting 'elegant' bribes in crackdown The objects do not
have fixed prices and the deals are often sealed privately. A painting at a
gallery will not sport a price tag
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auctions, and bidders have only "high" or "low" estimates for reference. With
these characteristics, works of art have long been viewed as a "grey area"
opportunity for corruption - making it extremely difficult to identify precisely
how much an art bribe is worth. Judicial prosecutors have recently been asked to
brush up their knowledge of artworks and antiquities, so that they are better
able to spot evidences of such yahui, or elegant bribery
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corrupt officials. The far-reaching anti-corruption drive already seems to have
hit yahui. Some auction houses have reported a drop in consignments from clients
made up of government officials, retired and current. These boast rich
collections of Chinese paintings and antiquities but dare not sell them at
public auction for fear of being investigated, Chinese media reported.
Beijing-based Art Market Monitor of Artron, an affiliation of Shenzhen printing
company Artron, recently issued a report on the Chinese art auction market in
the first half of the year. It predicted that unlike what had occurred in the
past decade
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eruptions and rocketing prices in the coming five years, a response to the
economic slowdown. The cooling down will be felt strongly in Chinese painting
and not just because of economic factors, according to the report. The Chinese
painting market has been increasingly criticized as a conduit for deals between
money and power, and the central government has vowed to target yahui in its
corruption crackdown. Art bribery dates back to hundreds of years and extremely
corrupt officials such as Yan Song of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and He Shen
of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) were among its most notorious examples. After
the art market revived in the 1990s, works of art sold for up to several hundred
yuan and appeared more as gifts centering on their aesthetic value. But as the
market boomed and prices hit tens of millions of yuan
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the market. Works of art became a shortcut for cashing in, making it very
convenient for yahui dealings. Some art market observers have questioned the
extent that the anti-corruption drive can curb art bribery and whether a better
way can be found to determine the true value of the bribes. Yahui-related
pricing has disrupted the art market for years. There have been several cases of
paintings in which investigators alleged involved bribes worth millions, only to
find out the objects were deliberately overpriced. In other cases, officials
sold a painting valued at several thousand yuan at auction only to have the
bribers winning the bid by paying millions of yuan. These abnormalities cannot
be eradicated if the market continues to function without a comprehensive
pricing mechanism, analysts said. Some dealers and auctioneers have been fully
involved in the "industry chain" of yahui. They help launder bribes and others
consign a forged painting to dealers or auctioneers who then sell it to the
bribers at the price of a genuine one. The practice of yahui reflects how bad
the art market can be
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been absent and cheating prevails without strict supervision, analysts said.
Mid-Autumn Festival gift-giving feels welcome effect of graft crackdown,
reports An Baijie.
For civil servant Jin Bo, Mid-Autumn Festival used to be an exhausting
affair. The official at a county in Dali, Yunnan province would be swamped
sending and accepting gifts during the annual holiday. "I had to accept so many
mooncakes as gifts that my family would have to eat them for breakfast for
weeks Chidobe
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protect his identity and keep his job.
Celebrations for Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept 8 this year,
include eating the round-shaped confectionaries during family reunions.
The traditional mooncake gifts to mark the festival had gradually evolved
into elaborately wrapped and expensive opportunities for people to present them
to recipients whom they wished to build or maintain good relationships with.
That included businessmen trying to curry favor with officials like Jin.
Jin said that apart from accepting gifts, he also had to rack his brains to
pick presents for his superiors during the festival - an "unwritten rule" among
many government departments.
Some officials would also accept gifts from subordinates who used the
gift-giving practice during the festival to try to get promoted Taco
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"In the past, there would always be some other luxurious products including
imported wine, expensive seafood and even gold bars, packed into the boxes of
mooncakes," he said Connor
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packs for him.
He refused to disclose what kinds of gifts he had received in the mooncake
boxes.
But with the central government's ongoing crackdown on graft, Mid-Autumn
Festival is no longer a burdensome affair for those like Jin.
For Jin, the situation started changing last year after the Communist Party
of China laid out clean-governance rules that banned government officials from
buying or sending gifts at public expense during festivals like Mid-Autumn.
To push forward the rules, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection, China's top anti-graft watchdog Leighton
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submit online whistleblowing posts to expose officials' misdeeds during the
festival.
"The change has put me more at ease, because it has helped stopped
unnecessary social activities," Jin said, who also welcomes the return of t
Network .
