The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.
Interactive platforms carefully control background commentary on the article “12 Female Officials Under Investigation for Corruption; Some Use Sex to Gain Power.” Delete content that maliciously attacks the system or is directed against government officials. (June 17, 2014)
互动环节注意控制以下文章后面的用户评论 《上半年通报查处12名女性涉贪官员 部分以色谋权》，
恶意攻击体制和专门针对政府的内容要予以删除。
Amid an ongoing crackdown on official corruption, the Beijing News (新京日报) published an article [Chinese] on Monday detailing graft-related investigations into 12 female government officials during the first half of this year, along with head shots of the women and explanations of their alleged infractions. Some re-prints of the Beijing News article contained the subheading “Some Used Sex to Gain Power” (“部分以色谋权”). China Daily sums up the report:
To date, a total of 12 female officials in key posts were announced as being under investigation for duty-related crimes by the central and provincial anti-graft watchdogs in 2014. Some of them are involved in trading sex for power, the Beijing News reported on Monday.
[…] Among the 12 investigated, six hold major posts at the municipal level, while four are senior officials of key departments at the municipal level. They range in age from 41, the youngest, to older than 60-year-old, on whom the investigation was practiced after the retirement.
At present, four have been proceeded to judicial authorities on charges of corruption and bribery, and eight are still under investigation.
The number of female officials who’re involved in duty-related crimes are on a rise in the recent five years, the newspaper quoted officials from the Department for Prevention of Duty-related Crimes at the Supreme Procuratorate as saying.
Thirty-three percent more were caught from January to November 2013 than all of 2009. Most of them were found offering or accepting bribes. [Source]
In a report for TIME, Hannah Beech situates this news alongside the well-documented glass ceiling in Chinese politics, and translates the expert analysis that closes out the original Beijing News article:
The Beijing News referred to testimony from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate that found a 33% increase in job-related crimes by female government workers, when comparing 2013 with 2009. In his report, Yang Jing, from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s job-related crime-prevention office, wrote:
In order to achieve good results in work, females often have to put in a lot of more effort than males do. When they see that their efforts and contributions don’t match their pay, and that there is no hope for promotion, a lot of them lose their psychological balance. They then turn to using their power to get benefits. They either use their power to help others gain profit or cooperate with male government officials and become their accomplices in job-related crimes.
Yang’s analysis ended with a Mars-Venus take on official chicanery:
Males have power and want sex, so they use their power to trade for sex. Females use sex to gain power, and then use their power for corruption. [Source]
CDT collects directives from a variety of sources and checks them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
WAR IS PEACE • FREEDOM IS SLAVERY • IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
