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VI. Conclusion
After a thorough perspective on the cases of causes and curbs of corruption in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, we have reached the concluding section of this text. Previous studies on the relationship between democracy and corruption focus on the power of democratic institutions to inhibit corruption. Institutions like public elections, freedom of information and association, and a free press are often considered to be among the most important factors leading to the negative relationship between democratization and corruption. In this study I sought to challenge the role of political regime type in terms of its relationship with corruption. Maybe the above mentioned are factors in a relationship between development and corruption. The purpose of pursuing this train of thought is to explore a universal nature of corruption, regardless of the context. This should be the ultimate goal of corruption researchers, to fully understand it at its essence in order to deal with it effectively no matter the context.
The People’s Republic of China was once undoubtedly a communist country. As of now, scholars have more trouble placing it among the rest of the Cold War era type communist nations. It has adopted capitalism in the early eighties and proceeds with steady reforms improving the lives of its many citizens. The old communist countries were stuck in terms of development (leading to the eventual downfall the Soviet Union) and this resulted in rampant corruption. China has been able to avoid stagnating growth due to its pragmatic view of what their ideology should allow in terms of policy. My research aims to contribute by exploring the notion that the institutional reforms associated with a reduction in official corruption are not restricted to democratic political regimes.
As the case of interest that challenges the paradigm is China, I chose to compare it to Taiwan, a democratic Greater China nation with cultural similarities.
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80 In some ways the comparison of these two nations is shaky. Taiwan is a very small country in
comparison to China and beyond the size difference the countries institutional systems are very much at odds with each other. China is in many ways a unique case that does not easily lend itself to comparison. However, as the body of my study shows, if we use a model that is unbiased in terms of political regime type and is focused on the factors causing corruption, key insights are to be gained at just how the two systems influence corruption trends in different and similar ways. Taiwan and China are countries that both developed after World War II, therefore their development timings are close enough to compare. Additionally, there is no other democratic country in the world that has cultural factors influencing corruption that are so similar to the PRC’s than Taiwan. Therefore, the comparison is a valid attempt to gain understanding of their corruption contexts and the nature of corruption itself.
Overall the abovementioned comparisons provide insight that goes well beyond my initial expectations. My hypothesis that in democratic and authoritarian regimes the issue of need-driven corruption was driven by a lack of oversight and low civil service salaries was correct. I also found that this problem was dealt with in the same way in both political regime types, namely through the implementation of administrative reforms and providing more competitive remuneration for government employees. Both regime types show similar trends for this form of corruption.
However, the analysis showed a different picture than I hypothesized regarding high-level, grand corruption. I hypothesized that the administrative reforms would promote grand corruption regardless of political regime type due to increasingly complex red tape providing more lucrative opportunities for the higher-ups in charge. My research shows that high level corruption is dependent on other factors, most importantly the rules that the officials have to abide by. In democratic Taiwan, all officials adhere to the rule of law. Therefore, the administrative and legal systems constrain their behavior as much as lower level officials and ordinary citizens. In the
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81 authoritarian PRC, party discipline is above the law and the political elite is above party discipline.
This gives anti-corruption a more political nature among higher-ups in the PRC than in Taiwan.
This is a fundamental difference between both countries’ frameworks of causes and curbs of corruption. The difference is directly related to regime type. One of the key elements of democracy is the rule of law. If a country does not have this it will affect their corruption trends in a negative way.
In summary, in contrary to my hypothesis, in the comparison of corruption trends between democratic Taiwan and non-democratic People’s Republic of China, key elements of democracy stand out as major factors suppressing corruption. Therefore, the notion that democratization curbs corruption still stands.
Another area where my research contributes is corruption research methodology. This is the first time that Jon S. T. Quah’s has been used in the format of a model for the comparison of different frameworks of causes and curbs of corruption. Especially comparing the five causes of corruption is particularly revealing. Overall this research shows how usable the Quah model is in comparative studies. However, using the model for this research also points out its shortcomings.
This text contributes to this model by pointing out a fourth pattern of anti-corruption. This is the pattern of the PRC with multiple sets of anti-corruption legislation and a non-independent ACA.
Quah’s model has a few problems. It is biased in that it uses the anti-corruption systems of
Singapore and Hong Kong as the benchmark for optimal anti-corruption. This is reasonable as the two countries have the lowest CPI scores in the world. However, there this assumption is
problematic. The most important point here is that Singapore and Hong Kong are city-states and much smaller than most other countries in the world. The difference in scale in terms of anti-corruption coverage between Singapore and, for example, China is enormous.
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82 This study has many other shortcomings and limitations. The most important shortcoming is the lack of up-to-date judicial data from the PRC. From other literature we assume that corruption cases in China follow two sets of rules, either the law or CCP party discipline rules. It would have been revealing to compare the amount of cases forwarded to the Procuratorate to the amount of cases that the Discipline Inspection took care of itself. Here I am limited by a limited proficiency in the Mandarin language and lack of publicly open data provided by the CCP.
Another limitation to this study was a lack of travel funds. It would have been revealing to interview experts on both sides about the five causes of corruption in Taiwan and the PRC. As there was no possibility to travel to the PRC, a one-sided interview in Taiwan would not have been representative.
Asia is one of the most dynamic regions in terms of corruption in the world in this day and age.
There is still much to be learned from the developments currently in motion here. Researchers should continue watching Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and Taiwan’s National Integrity Building Plan unfold and keep them in comparative perspective. This is important for the U-curve shaped relation between democratization and decreasing corruption theory. As of right now CPI numbers of the last two years hint at a slightly decreasing level of corruption in the PRC. While there is no direct evidence of this being the threshold after which corruption levels start decreasing, there is always the possibility of a drastic change being in the works. CCP politics are unpredictable, but not incomprehensible.
Another direction that future researchers should look at is expanding the scope of the comparison to all Greater China countries. A comparative perspective of the PRC, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan could reveal a lot about the development of corruption and its relationship to Chinese cultural factors.
Additionally, as I have stated earlier, Quah’s model takes the city-states of Singapore and Hong Kong as its benchmark for judging other cases. Future researchers could expand the model by using
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83 a less biased bar. For example, the Anti-Corruption guidelines as set up by the World Bank could be used as a gauge for different cases.
The study of corruption is a very interesting and dynamic field and the fruits of its research can have far reaching consequences for the welfare of the people who fall victim to it. When one studies corruption, one must keep in mind that it is a societal ill that creates inequality and inefficiency. In societies where corruption is rampant adversity is constantly reproducing. This study hopes to bring us a small step closer to the understanding of the nature of corruption. There is still much to be discovered, but much progress has been made.
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