4,000 Chinese Officials Fled China in 2004.....

4,000 Chinese officials fled China last year with an estimated 5 billion Yuan [HK$4.80 billion-US$600 million] in graft money in tow. The currency figure seems a little low to me since this only amounts to US$150,000 for each of the 4,000 fugitives, not enough to even buy a house in Canada or the US. I figure that this figure is probably substantially understated since a higher number would imply that the problem is nowhere near under control.

The flow of officials into the US and Canada has been ongoing for a number of years since these destinations do not extradite fugitive criminals back to China due to China's policy of executing non-violent offenders of law.

Chu said China's use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes makes the extradition process even more difficult, because many countries refuse to send back foreign nationals who could face possible execution.

However, due to domestic political considerations, it is unlikely that China will change its execution policy anytime soon.

For years, some Chinese legal experts have called for limits on death sentences in non-violent cases, Chu said, adding if corrupt officials were not afraid of facing execution, many of them would not choose to flee the country.

``But Chinese people's cries for severe punishment of corrupt officials are very loud and you have to consider the country's needs to stem graft. A decision on whether or not to keep imposing the death penalty for non-violent crimes will require further debate and experiments,'' Chu said.

So, when has China really cared about what the populace thinks anyway? This argument is just a strawman and one that is not very convincing on its surface. The real reason that China doesn't want to curb its use of the death penalty is that execution is just another tool in its arsenal to keep people in line domestically. Without the death penalty for non-violent offenders of the law, it will be much more difficult to control the population with high profile executions under the guise of the law.

In a weak attempt to stem the flow, China has instituted a policy where officials have to get permission from their superiors in order to travel outside of the country. This will just cause corrupt officials to be more careful and deceitful till they choose to flee. China is not really making a serious attempt to reduce corruption since they refuse to take positive steps to bring the international community into the process. The problem is that the Chinese Communist Party is the main beneficiary of corruption and it will be difficult to eradicate.