Corruption in China as a force-multiplier

Reports are coming out of intense corruption in the Chinese military. These come as no surprise, since China is a highly corrupt society to begin with thanks to the unusually close relationship between government and business that characterizes Chinese state-capitalism and China's ancient tradition of wealthy nobility being awarded government positions that dates back to the Qin Dynasty in 221 BCE. Corruption in the military hampers the effectiveness of communication and lowers discipline, while corruption in the civilian government keeps millions in poverty and creating a major wealth disparity between the rich Eastern cities and the poorer yet more populous West.

On its face, this looks pretty good for the U.S. America is in the business of maintaining its hegemony, which it can do by keeping its challengers down. Corruption hurts China by hurting the Chinese economy, weakening their military, and increasing the possibility of a revolution by the poor West.

However, the U.S. has both a moral and realist responsibility to denounce corruption in China. Morally, the U.S. must denounce corruption because it unfairly hurts China's poor and kills millions, which no upright human being can allow. This in turn would increase America's soft power and moral standing in the world by showing other nations that the U.S. cares about helping the little guy. From a realist point of view, however, denouncing corruption by sending Hilary Clinton to China to give a speech saying something along the lines of "rampant corruption like China's makes a government illegitimate" would help speed along a collapse of the Communist Party. How would this work? First, it is highly improbable that any speech by a U.S. official, even by the President, would force China to change its corrupt ways. Corruption in China is too deeply entrenched and too ancient of a tradition to be ended by a speech. Further, despite the amazing volume of organizations, money, and laws (1,200 of the latter) that have been used to attempt to fight corruption in China, corruption has increased, not decreased.

While denouncing Chinese corruption is unlikely to deny the U.S. the benefits of this corruption, it will likely incite anger against the regime. Corruption in China is well-known, but most Chinese I have talked to merely regard it as a fact of life and not as an evil. It would not be particularly hard to show a large swath of the Chinese people who corruption hurts them because this is plainly evident in most parts of the country. If a speech by Hilary Clinton or another prominent, well-known American were to call corruption evil, it could incite some small-scale revolts against the Chinese leadership, which would in turn weaken China. Even if that does not happen, the end result is still good: China remains hobbled by corruption while the U.S. gets a new image as a moral crusader for justice.