![]() ![]() For those at the top, the scale of temptation had reached a level unlike anything ever encountered in the West. Every country has corruption, but China’s was approaching a level of its own. A one-star general could reportedly expect to receive ten million dollars in gifts and business deals a four-star commander stood to earn at least fifty million. Even the military was riddled with patronage commanders received a string of payments from a pyramid of loyal officers beneath them. It followed a certain logic: in weak democracies, people paid their way into office by buying votes in a state where there were no votes to buy, you paid the people who doled out the jobs. The municipal party secretary was on the block for $101,000. In a small town in Inner Mongolia, the post of chief planner was sold for $103,000. ![]() “Paying for power was so common that in 2012 the Modern Chinese Dictionary, the national authority on language, was compelled to add the word maiguan-“to buy a government promotion.” In some cases, the options read like a restaurant menu. ![]()
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