A commentary translated by CDT from the Beijing News:
From June to October, the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province put hidden cameras on its roads and recorded more than 5,900 occurrences of police cars running red lights, according to Xinhua. Of course, local police officers are not allowed to run so many red lights while on duty. Although it’s not as big a deal compared with high profile corruption or embezzlement, police running red lights is not a small matter.
It reflects a warped culture in current society: respecting the ugly as the virtuous, and law-breaking as a kind of glory, or a trophy of social status. And when these power abuses run unpunished, then an ugly culture will prevail, and honesty and obedience to the law will be “disgraced.” And this cannot be solved through moral self-discipline. A system needs to be put in place to weed out its roots. [Full Text in Chinese]