Daring anti-corruption drama shows Party's growing confidence
Daring anti-corruption drama shows Party’s growing confidence on this issue: experts
Actor Lu Yi stars as Hou Liangping, a young prosecutor from the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the hero in the anti-corruption campaign-themed drama In the Name of the People.
Outspoken television series In the Name of the People has been a huge
smash hit in China, with experts telling the Global Times that the very
existence of the high-profile show about an anti-corruption
investigator looking into the affairs of a fictional provincial
government shows that the Communist Party of China (CPC) is becoming
increasingly confident about its anti-graft fight.
The TV series
has been broadcast by Hunan TV, a provincial satellite TV station,
since March 28, and five video websites have also hosted it
simultaneously.
The show has proved an immediate and massive
success. So far, 24 of the 55 episodes are available online. On
iqiyi.com, a video website under Chinese web giant Baidu, viewers have
tuned in to episodes 1.06 billion times, and it has been viewed online
more than 2 billion times in total.
The novel, which was released
in January and was penned by the show's lead screenwriter, has also
been phenomenally popular on the Chinese book market. "The demand for
the novel always exceeds supply. Although the printing plant is working
overtime, supply still can't meet demand," publisher Beijing October
told Shenyang Evening News, a local newspaper in Shenyang, Northeast
China's Liaoning Province.
Why so popular?
The
story, set in the fictional province Handong, tells the story of a
power struggle among senior officials and entrepreneurs in addition to
looking at the anti-graft campaign. The hero of the story is a young
prosecutor from the Supreme People's Procuratorate, whose mission is to
investigate a complicated case which involves assassination, official
corruption and economic disputes.
The series wasn't shown on
national broadcaster CCTV, there was no large scale publicity drive
beforehand and no young superstars have added any glamour to the cast,
but it still beat all its competitors to be the most popular TV series
of the last 12 months.
"At least three things make this series
raise eyebrows successfully. Firstly the story combined anti-corruption
and detective storylines; secondly, Chinese audiences are interested in
officials' personal lives and their daily work; thirdly, anti-corruption
is always popular since Chinese people totally hate corruption," Su
Wei, a professor at the Party School of the Chongqing Municipal CPC
Committee, told the Global Times on Monday.
"More importantly,
the story is very outspoken. It shows that senior officials can be
villains. The story didn't avoid mentioning the power struggles among
Chinese officials when talking about the anti-corruption campaign," an
anonymous official from the provincial government of the Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region who closely follows the series told the Global Times.
That
the outspoken show passed TV watchdogs successfully shows that the CPC
is getting increasingly confident, as it has dared to share a story
based on reality in addition to telling its members what is dangerous,
Su said.
The story also covers topics like financial corruption
within banks and corrupt officials fleeing to the US. "These are
contemporary issues. Currently, Xi Jinping,
General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has said that and how
long it takes," Xu Xing, a professor of politics at the Zhou Enlai
School of Government of Nankai University, told the Global Times on
Monday.
That the story chooses the US as the destination of a
fleeing official has a factual basis, because the US is an ideal country
for corrupt officials and other criminals to hide in as it doesn't have
an extradition treaty with China, Xu said.
However, the story
also shows China's flaws, Su said. "The investigation in this story
heavily relies on the support of the provincial Party Secretary Sha
Ruijin who is the top leader of the province, so the anti-corruption
efforts in the story rely on governmental authority rather than systemic
anti-corruption mechanisms which are based on a sound legal system, so
it also shows that China really needs to build up a sound legal system
to restrain corruption more effectively."
Anti-corruption in reality
At
the same time as In the Name of the People is making headlines, the
Chinese government is also deepening its real-life campaign against
corruption. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
has vowed more efforts in promoting clean governance, stressing
reinforced supervision over the use of State assets and a harsh
crackdown on financial corruption, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Li
said in a speech on March 21 that China achieved new and important
progress in clean governance and fighting corruption in 2016, but there
are still problems which require stronger measures.
On Sunday,
China's top anti-graft authority announced that Xiang Junbo, chairman of
the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, is being investigated for
suspected serious violations of the code of conduct of the CPC.
"Violators
must be punished to serve as a warning to others and safeguard the
normal order of financial sectors," Li said in his speech. He also
called for further efforts to improve government services.
Source: http://www.globaltimes.cn
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