The paradox of vast corruption and fast growth in China's "Gilded Age"

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2021

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If corruption is a drag on economic growth, why does China appear to have undergone some of its fastest growth during its periods of deepest corruption? This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Yuen Yuen Ang, an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, about her book China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption, which sets out to explain this apparent contradiction. The author highlights the inadequacies of existing measures of corruption, suggests her own alternative means of measuring it, and explains how the prevalence of one particular form of corruption — what she calls “access money” — is something China has in common with the United States in the age of robber barons.

5:00: A typology of corruption, and how drugs are a useful analogy

10:05: Why all corruption is ultimately bad for a country

20:25: Is the “revolving door” in the U.S. equivalent to access money corruption?

27:44: The relationship between corruption and regime type

41:45: Profit-sharing with Chinese characteristics

59:37: Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive: are officials spared because of performance, or patronage?

Recommendations

Yuen Yuen: The documentary film Generation Wealth

Kaiser: The Netflix miniseries The Chair and the podcast Chinese Whispers by Cindy Yu

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the cynical podcast, the weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SubChina.
0:14.6	Subscribe to SubChina's daily access newsletter to keep on top of all the latest news from China from hundreds of different news sources.
0:21.0	Or check out all the original writing on our site at subchina.com, including reported stories,
0:26.2	editorials, and regular columns, as well as a growing library of videos, and, of course, podcasts.
0:31.5	We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs,
0:36.0	from the ongoing repression of Uighurs and
0:37.9	other Muslim people in China's Xinjiang region, to China's ambitious efforts to eliminate poverty.
0:43.6	It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world.
0:49.4	We cover China with neither fear nor favor.
0:52.5	I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you today from my home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
0:57.0	The corruption perception index from Transparency International suggests that China is roughly as corrupt as India.
1:03.0	If that's so, then why is it that corruption seems to be so much more of a drag on the Indian economy than on China's?
1:10.0	Indeed, why is it that in the very
1:12.1	periods where experts all seem to agree that China's corruption was particularly egregious,
1:16.9	China's economic growth is still so robust. These and many other mysteries and contradictions
1:22.4	of corruption in China have long puzzled, not just me, but many others who studied China.
1:28.3	Thankfully, my guest today has written a book that tackles all this and more, and it's one
1:32.1	of the most eye-opening and insightful works I've read in many years.
1:35.6	That book is, of course, China's Gilded Age, the Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption,
1:42.1	and its author is Yuan Yuan Yuan-Nu-Nong.
1:43.9	Yuan-Nus associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, and its author is Yuan Yuan Yuan Yuan is Associate Professor of Political
1:45.7	Science at the University of Michigan, and also the author of another influential work on China's
	...

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