Chinese officials sent on prison tours as a 'warning' against corruption

Officials and their spouses in Hubei province spent a day in prison this month ‘as an educational warning’, reported China Daily, provoking mockery online

The Guardian, Agence France-Presse,Monday 25 May 2015

China’s ruling Communist party led by President Xi Jinping has vowed to
crack down on endemic corruption. Photograph: Ma Zhancheng/AP

Chinese officials have been sent on prison tours visiting inmates including former colleagues as a warning against corruption, state-run media said Monday, provoking mockery online.

More than 70 officials and their spouses in central Hubei province spent a day in prison this month “as an educational warning”, the government-published China Daily reported.

The trip had given them a chance to meet 15 former government staff serving custodial sentences at the institution, it added.

The ruling Communist party has vowed to crack down on endemic corruption, with several former senior figures placed under investigation in recent years.

But there have not been systemic reforms and critics say with tight controls on media and the judicial system the campaign is open to being used for factional infighting.

The newspaper cited the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Communist party’s top anti-corruption body, as saying such prison visits had been organised nationwide. The tours encouraged cadres to “be aware of wrongdoings involving corruption”, the CCDI was quoted as saying.

Some Chinese internet users applauded the scheme while others reacted with derision, some calling for the trips to be extended.

One poster on Sina Weibo, a microblogging platform similar to Twitter, wrote: “If you carried out a random check on these officials, most of them would belong in prison anyway.”