Lai Changxing, labeled the "most corrupt man in China," was sentenced last week to life imprisonment for bribes he paid to government officials to protect his vast smuggling operations based in the port city of Xiamen.
Lai's downfall resulted from years of efforts by Chinese officials to bring the billionaire to justice. He escaped the death penalty, which would be customary, due to protracted negotiations between China and Canada, where Lai fled over a decade ago. A condition of his extradition to China was that he would not be executed or tortured.
Numerous employees for Lai's Yuanhua Group earlier were convicted of various offenses involving illegal transportation and smuggling of oil, cars and cigarettes. Lai had amassed a $10 billion criminal empire, and at the center of these crimes was a pattern of bribery and official corruption that cut across broad sections of the government and the military.
Ultimately, however, Lai was forced to flee to Canada in 1999. He remained under house arrest in Vancouver, while Beijing and Ottawa negotiated whether, and how, Lai would be returned for trial.
Lai's conviction represents an important success for the communist leadership in China. Concerns over rampant corruption and criminality are a recurring feature in modern China, where years of rapid growth has led to vast fortunes being quickly accumulated with little concern as to their legality. Given the key role that the state still has in the Chinese economy, and the importance of patronage in ensuring that new ventures are a success, it is no surprise that bribery so prevalent.
According to the court that convicted Lai, "the Chinese government's determination to attack crime and root out corruption is unwavering." The web of corruption, however, is extensive in modern China.
Reports also circulated in recent days that Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing whose unexpected attempt to defect to the U.S. Embassy in February lifted the lid on the Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai scandals, would be charged with treason and face the death penalty. Bo, a Communist Party princeling, is under investigation for a number of crimes related to patronage and corruption; his wife, Gu, is suspected of a role in the death of a British businessman, Neil Haywood.
For many years, Wang was widely known as China's "top cop" and had been a close ally of Bo during his rise to power. Wang made his name by orchestrating popular raids on members of the powerful local mafia.
As a result of Wang's fall from grace, unwanted attention is now being focused on the higher echelons of the Communist Party. Many experts believe that quick trials for Wang, Bo and Gu are likely to occur before the party congress scheduled in the fall, when a generational transfer of power is anticipated among top leadership.
However, much of the media was more interested in the arrival in America a few days ago of the high-profile, blind political activist Chen Guangcheng. Over the past month, Washington and Beijing had been engaged in a convoluted diplomatic shoving match over the ultimate fate of Chen, a self-trained human-rights lawyer who had previously tried to claim asylum in the U.S. Embassy. Chen had been imprisoned four years, and then under illegal house arrest for a year and a half. His plight eventually became a global cause célèbre.
Chinese officials finally allowed Chen, his wife and their two children to leave the country in order to allow Chen to study law at New York University. It remained unclear, though, whether his relatives in China will be subject to reprisals, or whether Chen will ever be able to return safely to his home country.
The Chen affair has embarrassed Beijing, at a time when China is wrestling with a number of important internal and external challenges. As U.S. presidential elections loom, and China prepares for its leadership change, both countries will want to ensure that their economic and diplomatic relations continue to be positive and productive.
A downward spiral in the relations between these two important trading partners would benefit few people in either China or the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appear to have made meaningful progress with their Chinese counterparts during recent meetings in Beijing, in spite of the Chen controversy.
However, the persistence of corruption mean that China can still be a difficult, and unpredictable, place to do business. In addition, the generational transfer of power means at least some period of uncertainty lies ahead. Prime Minister Xi Jinping is widely expected to take office as president, but questions remain as to which direction he, and the other members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, will take the country.
As much as Western audiences enjoy charismatic images of dissidents, like Chen, speaking truth to power, these actions are only part of wider progress that needs to be made to establish rule of law in China. The conviction of Lai, and the upcoming trials of Wang, Bo and Gu, are also important indicators of the progress China is making towards being the type of country that the Chinese people deserve.