A classic personal anti-corruption story, one that cost the hero a divorce and eight years of rough life. Translated from Justice Net via sina.com (photo: Pang Jiayu the downed Shaanxi official, via sina.com):
Wei Jianjun (魏建军), in his late 40s, once applied for a deputy director-general opening in Baoji City (宝鸡市) of Shaanxi Province and got the job after an exam. But soon he was advised to step down. Not annoyed, he was busying himself with exams for other cadre openings in a few provinces. But soon he found himself blocked for any of those government jobs.
Later Wei learned he wasn’t a favorite of then Baoji party secretary, Pang Jiayu (Â∫ûÂÆ∂Èí∞). Some colleagues suggested to Wei that he send in some gift cash, say 50,000 yuan. Wei scoffed at the idea. At one meeting with Pang, Wei even burst into a verbal fight and threatened to fight with him, suspecting that Pang was a corrupt official.
Wei started to collect evidence, which was plenty to come by. He found many retired cadres, who tipped him with many leads, such as the fact that Pang’s two daughters were studying in the U.S. Wei also came into contact with many current officials disfavored by Pang, who then became Pang’s “tomb diggers.”
But to carry out a fight to unseat a local big boss, Wei did all his investigation undergrorund and he didn’t even tell his wife about what he was up to. (And he actually decided to divorce his wife and gave away all his property to her and their child to prevent retaliation against his family. He said he would remarry her after his secret battle.) But it took him a while to find a typist shop to print out his 3-page corruption reporting documents.
In 2001, he sent his materials in to Beijing authorities by express. But Pang survived a probe, and in 2003 he got promoted to be a vice chairman of Shaanxi Provincial CPPCC (ÁúÅÊîøÂçè). Right after Pang went to his new job, he summoned Wei and sort of apologized for his role in firing Wei’s first government job. Wei was, of course, asked not to report on Pang any more.
With Pang leaving his power base in Baoji, the number of people who wanted to stand up to fight him surged. Wei had to ask many of his whistle-blowers to back off signing on the petition letter in a new round of reporting in the summer of 2005. Two months after the new letters were mailed to Beijing, another investigation descended on Pang, who was downed this time. [Full Text in Chinese]
