Xinhua Insight: Family values, honest government conduct

Behind most corrupt officials stands a corrupted family.

That's the lesson being drilled into officials across China as the government steps up education of traditional family values.

In Shanghai, east China, Fengxian District added social and family behavior outside working hours to the officials' performance assessments.

Zhou Ping, secretary of the district committee of the CPC, said family values influenced the morality and integrity of officials.

Family values have been considered the most significant influence on individual behavior since ancient times in China. Now, they are even expected to help curb adultery.

President Xi Jinping stressed at the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in January the necessity of upholding traditional Chinese culture in the cultivation of good work styles, urging senior officials to highlight honesty at home.

He made the remarks in the wake of a string of corruption convictions among officials who also sought to enrich relatives and who had questionable home lives.

On October 16 last year, former Party chief of Hebei Province Zhou Benshun was expelled from the CPC. The CCDI said in a statement that Zhou had accepted bribes and took advantage of his post to seek profits for others, including helping his son's business interests.

"His family values are skewed and he indulged his wife and children," the statement said.

An investigation in 2014 also found that Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, took advantage of his posts to seek profits for others and accepted huge bribes personally and through his family. He abused his power to help relatives, mistresses and friends make huge profits from operating businesses, resulting in serious losses of state-owned assets.

Huang Xianyao, secretary of the discipline and inspection department of south China's Guangdong Province, said some officials proclaimed they were serving the people with propriety, while enriching relatives behind closed doors.

Huang Baiqing, former head of the Water Resources Department of Guangdong Province, took bribes and gifts totaling 200 million yuan. An investigation by the discipline inspection department found relatives had been a conduit for graft.

Huang Baiqing established a corruption network in his family. He exercised power, while his wife accepted bribes and their son laundered money in foreign countries.

On holidays and festivals, Huang Baiqing remembered those who had not given him money and "invited" them to visit.

Fu Ying, spokeswoman for the Fourth Session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), said at a press conference prior to the session on March 4 that the national legislature would step up legislative efforts to fight corruption at its source.

According to the official CDDI website, 34 discipline punishment reports were opened on officials above ministerial level from February 13 to December 31 last year - 62 percent of them referred to officials' relatives.

Earlier this year, the CCDI launched a Wechat account. Five of the 48 articles posted to date refer to "family values", drawing tens of thousands of views.

The account introduced two Chinese traditional family instructions that teach children to be wholeheartedly devoted to public duty and to denounce dishonesty in bettering their position.

On March 3, a major newspaper, Guangming Daily, published a front-page commentary saying the CPC central committee' s governance was absorbing wisdom and ideas from Chinese traditional culture.

"A clean governance culture, moral wisdom, spiritual integrity, self-supervision, and people-based thought are being introduced to the construction of Party conduct and honest government," the article said.

"The importance to the family, parenting and family values have been the key tenets for Party conduct," it noted.

"Party members have been conscious of sincerity, alertness, veneration and restraint in cultivating morality."

According to Zhu Xi (1130-1200), a philosopher in the Southern Song Dynasty, parents ought to be amiable while children should be filial; older brothers ought to be friendly while younger brothers should be respectful.

The precept also states that wealth should not be gotten illegally.

Chinese ideologist Liang Qichao, who wrote more than 400 letters to his children, taught them to contribute to society.

Liang's son, Liang Sili, recalls his father always emphasized patriotism: "He taught us to be concerned about our country and its people."

Professor Liu Dongchao, of the Chinese Academy of Governance, says many corruption cases show how family values could influence moral standards and orientation.

"In the end, the conduct of both the Party and government will be negatively influenced," says Liu.

"As a systemic project, the anti-corruption campaign will improve political morality and integrity, helped by decent family valued."

Professor Yan Jirong, of the School of Government of Peking University, says family values are an important line in resisting the corruption: "The construction of family values shows the unchanged determination of the CPC Central Committee to fight corruption."

Professor Wang Yukai, of the Chinese Academy of Governance, says the spouses and children of some officials collect wealth illicitly.

"This phenomenon has almost become a fixed model of corruption, provoking public outrage," says Wang.

"The grey area of family interests must be erased in order to build a clean Party and improve government conduct."

A series of CPC rules was implemented early this year, requiring officials to consciously take the lead in building decent family values.

Wang thinks the CPC will strengthen regulation of the business interests of officials' spouses and children, press ahead with asset registers for officials' families, and strictly investigate profit transfers within officials' families.

Last year, Shanghai piloted such regulations. Wang hopes they will be rolled out across the country. Endi