[AzCal Retred]

https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/china-cracks-down-on-corruption-in-the-belt-and-road-program

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is increasingly taking a stand against corruption in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Bribing foreign officials in securing projects has always been an unspoken BRI mechanism, but what’s become intolerable to the party is growing embezzlement of Chinese funds by Chinese officials.

It’s an extension of a domestic campaign to catch official self-enrichment that began more than a decade ago. Still, holding down that side of corruption in the BRI is helpful in promoting the idea that the international infrastructure initiative is transparent and efficient.

A review of Chinese documents reveals that the change began around 2021. Notably, officials of the party’s anticorruption agency, the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection (CCDI), have been posted abroad with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to monitor officials.

China projects the BRI as a global public good. However, it also facilitates China’s economic influence through economic integration and resource extraction. And by creating dependence on China abroad, it lifts the country’s geopolitical influence.

China floated the idea of a ‘clean’ BRI in the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017. Since then, it has stepped up the narrative of its anticorruption measures being a fight against global corruption. That narrative downplays corrupt practices by Chinese companies in BRI projects.

Official discourse has framed corruption in the BRI as a human problem that’s pervasive in all societies, thereby presenting Chinese concerns about corruption as reflecting the efficiency of the Chinese political system. Officials also present anticorruption concerns in terms of guarding against possible wrongdoing amid massive investments, rather than pointing to existing corrupt practices.

[him a layin]

may i suggest vows of poverty and celibacy for govt officials, w/life imprisonment  the penalty for non-compliance? a bit too harsh, you say? ok, ok. 10 yrs.

[AzCal Retred]

I was thinking more along the lines of wearable cameras like the police have, that "condition of employment" thing. Loop in the SCOTUS too. The NSA could correlate any cell phone usage happening whilst you were in the commode or bedroom. C. Thomas, MTG and Boebert's footage would likely be fascinating...