The last time his parents saw Liao Mengjun alive, he was heading to school to pick up his junior high school diploma.

A few hours later, they were called to the morgue. They found that their lanky 15-year-old son’s forehead had been bashed in. His right knee jutted through the skin. Both his arms had been broken. He had several stab wounds, internal injuries and a swollen foot.

His index finger was slashed, suggesting his tormentors had tried to make him write something in his own blood.

As if things could be worse, writer Liao Zusheng and his wife, Chen Guoying, concluded that they knew who had killed their son: his teachers. And they believed they knew why: because of their bitter, public complaints about unauthorized fees and systemic corruption in schools and across Chinese society.


Corruption is an everyday experience for millions of Chinese that taints not just schools, but relations in business, on farms and in factories, and potentially any contact citizens have with officialdom. Foshan appears no more corrupt than any other city in China, experts say. It is noteworthy only as an example of a pervasive problem that threatens China’s stability and political system.

Senior Communist Party officials know that decades of remarkable economic progress are at risk if graft and bribery stretch the chasm between the haves and have-nots too wide. But they have limited room to maneuver. Any meaningful effort to crack down endangers the party’s monopoly on power.

The system depends on legions of police, local party and government officials to enforce Beijing’s policies and quash dissent. All too often, critics say, local officials regard their position as a license to steal.

Throughout the country, the prodigious rate of economic growth has created a gold rush mentality. Absent both the strictures and the social safety network of Mao Tse-tung’s rigid system, millions of people are seeking ways to prosper -- legally or illegally.


Corruption accounts for an estimated 3% to 15% of a $7-trillion economy, and party membership can be an invitation to solicit bribes or cut illegal land deals. Membership hit 74 million at the end of 2007, a 10% jump from 2002, as moneymaking opportunities increasingly trumped ideology.

Nearly 5,000 officials at the county level or above were punished for corruption over the last year, state media reported Friday.

“Of course everyone hates corruption,” said Qiao Zhanxiang, a Beijing lawyer who took on the Ministry of Railways for alleged price gouging and lost. “But everyone also wants to be a part of it.”

The result is a growing divide between those who benefit from corruption and their victims. It is at the grass-roots level where this chasm is most harshly felt, among those abused by the system, like Liao and Chen, or others who have simply been left behind.


“Common Chinese people are in hell,” said Ai Xiaoming, a documentary film producer and professor at Zhongshan University in the neighboring city of Guangzhou. “Hell is not some future. It’s right now.”

Foshan

Foshan, or “Buddha Mountain,” is the ancestral home of martial arts star Bruce Lee, the place where severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, was first observed, and the source of some of the worst air pollution in the Pearl River delta industrial heartland.

Factories produce ceramics, furniture, toys and household appliances, including items sold by Wal-Mart, Kmart, Avon and Home Depot.


But if you spend time in Foshan, a city of 5.9 million residents and 2.3 million migrant workers, you find it’s also a place where bridges and houses collapse; where half- finished skyscrapers sit empty and tilting dangerously.

It’s a place where counterfeit currency shows up in ATMs and pay packets.

It’s a place where factory workers from inland provinces can be shaken down, beaten -- and allegedly sometimes even killed by brutal auxiliary police.

It’s a place where a cash-stuffed “red envelope” can ensure that doctors do their best in the operating room, or that you’ll pass your driving test even if you never leave the parking lot.


In China, it’s also unremarkable, said Ren Jianming, vice director of the Clean Government Research Center at Beijing’s Qinghua University: “What you observed in Foshan can be seen to a certain extent everywhere.”

To play -- or not

Liao, a former soldier and a longtime Communist Party member, and his wife say officials at Huangqi Middle School turned against them after he spoke out against a $3,900 “selection fee” the school tried to charge without a receipt.

He also posted several essays on the Internet on corruption and waste in China.


Frustrated by what they said was systemic police harassment and stonewalling, including refusal to release their son’s autopsy report, Chen and Liao decided to investigate the death themselves.

They said the information they gathered before witnesses were intimidated by police convinced them that the dean of Mengjun’s class, two teachers and a guard attacked him that evening two years ago.

It is difficult to verify the parents’ account because witnesses often stay quiet for fear of reprisals. There is no independent police, courts or media.

Foshan’s propaganda ministry said Mengjun was caught stealing, attacked his teachers and committed suicide. Police and the head of a government team dealing with the case declined to comment. One of the teachers, Liang Xibo, said he was in his office that day but didn’t see or hear anything.


But local officials offered the couple large amounts of money to end their quest for justice. First it was $20,000. Then $50,000, if they destroyed all the evidence and stopped talking about the case. Finally, it rose to $70,000, several years’ income for the family.

They also urged Chen, 42, and Liao, 38, to have a “replacement” child under China’s strict one-child policy to “ease their grief.”

Liao isn’t interested. “It’s blood money,” he said.

But many others decide early on to play the game.


Like most parents, Lily, a 40-something Foshan stay-at-home mother, wanted the best for her only son -- and that meant giving bribes. Sipping a cup of tea, Lily explained that bribery is something of an art form and described how she went about it:

Nine years ago, when her son was ready for primary school, she found a friend who knew a senior local education official. Lily, who asked that her family name not be used, went to the man’s office with about $370, didn’t say much and left the money. Her son was accepted.

A couple of years ago, he was ready for junior high school, but didn’t do well on his entrance exams. Several friends were enlisted to wine and dine key people, she said, seeding the ground for her to distribute $1,200 among education officials and make a $1,600 “donation” to the institution.

Recently, Lily’s son entered senior high school. Despite spending thousands of dollars on gratuities, her connections weren’t strong enough and she had to settle for a less prestigious school.


Lily said she still considers it money well spent, even though any parent knows that getting in is only the first step.

Families face unauthorized demands for book, uniform and lunch “fees.” With all sides complicit, most go unchecked, including the pressure to deliver red envelopes, particularly to teachers whose subjects feature prominently on college entrance exams. “If there are 50 students and 40 give gifts, you definitely don’t try very hard with the other 10,” said one education industry official, who is also a parent. “Unfortunately, that’s our system.”

‘Numb’

Tao Jun says he has seen the same process play out in a new arena of wealth and opportunity: private business.


Executives say government and party officials demand payments and abuse their power to award contracts or issue permits. Companies that lowball or otherwise anger officials learn quickly that the most routine inspection can turn into a nightmare.

“Even if you lease a building for 50 years, they can take it back tomorrow,” said one Foshan businesswoman, who like others interviewed declined to be identified or discuss details for fear of repercussions.

Though cash is straightforward, executives said gifts of department store and restaurant vouchers are more difficult to trace, as are artwork and stock, paid “study” trips, prostitutes or paying overseas tuition for officials’ children.

High tax rates exert further pressure, said Tao, an activist who once worked as a general manager of an Internet company in Foshan. The company handed out $140 in bribes each month to avoid $1,400 in taxes, he recalled.


“I know because I signed the vouchers,” Tao said. “It’s hard to be a good person in China. The system makes you numb to what’s right and wrong.”

Companies bribe each other, passing on the cost to customers, and use payoffs to cut corners, accelerate growth or box out competitors.

Occasionally, scandals become public, suggesting how much money is at stake. In one high-profile case here in recent years, industrialist Feng Mingchang was implicated in a $1.2-billion loan scandal in which he reportedly bribed 223 bankers and government officials. He was sentenced to life in prison, and one of his bankers received the death penalty.

But sometimes, business executives can turn the tables on corrupt officials.


Lin Ze, a law professor at the Central Party School in Beijing, said businessmen would treat officials to lavish meals, foot massages, saunas and other entertainment, and secretly tape it. “Then once you don’t do things according to their plan, they turn you in.”

‘Corruption tour’

In Lichong, a village incorporated into greater Foshan, residents lead a visitor on what they call a “corruption tour.”

They point out a five-story pink-and-white mansion. And a two-story house nestled behind a large gate. And a villa with closed-circuit cameras and palm trees in a gated community. And a couple of prominent businesses.


All of those, they say, belong to local Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanxi, whose official salary they estimate at $450 a month.

Chen Liujuan, a member of the village’s party committee, has three houses and one commercial property, they say. One of them is a three-story residence with Greek columns and cascading terraces.

In the Communist-run nation, land still is collectively owned, with proceeds going to village coffers. In practice, however, officials and their inner circle have enormous opportunities to enrich themselves.

The Lichong officials declined to respond to accusations of corruption. And as in so many other corners of China, a lack of public records makes verification of villagers’ claims difficult. But although it’s illegal for them to make copies, some residents report having seen party records. Documents seen by The Times show an internal party investigation into the alleged diversion of funds involving dubious accounts by Lichong officials.


Villagers say they doubt that much of anything can check the power of their local officials. In almost any showdown, here or elsewhere in China, police will support local authorities, in part because a riot could weaken the party’s political position.

“Even if the central government wanted to see justice carried out at the village level, it is afraid of losing the support of local officials,” said Tang Jingling, an activist based in Guangzhou. “They need them to control society since they’re scared to death of any sort of unrest. And to do that, they must let them run their fiefdoms.” In the past, officials have acknowledged that many land protests turn violent.

A survey last year of 90 cities found that 22% to 80% of new land projects were illegal, according to the official New China News Agency.

In Lichong, villagers say, the gold rush began in 1988, when officials built seven porcelain factories. They promised jobs to displaced farmers, but the factories lost money, were stripped of value and were sold back to the government.


As Foshan has expanded, the value of land has skyrocketed. By law, the proceeds should be distributed among Lichong’s 2,300 resident-shareholders.

The main cooperative project is a complex of apartment buildings up to 23 stories high near a planned subway stop that will link the area with Guangzhou. Villagers say their share of the profits was arbitrarily cut to about 35%. Even then, they should be doing well. But local party officials say the cooperative is almost broke and give them each no more than $107 a month.

Later it became clear where at least some of the money had gone. Officials had deposited more than $1.5 million in a postal bank, pocketing portions of the interest and principal. However, the bank allegedly operated a Ponzi scheme that siphoned off as much as $240 million. Farmers have fought back in several villages. They say several of their leaders have been beaten and imprisoned on trumped-up charges. One farmer from nearby Sanshan died in custody.

A few continue to work the land among the factories, bulldozers and housing projects.


Chen Qixi, 38, raises ducks on a few acres of flooded land beneath an elevated highway. As he tended his flock recently, unemployed villagers looked on. Chen Rutian, 65, said his ancestors had worked this land for 23 generations. “We’ve seen emperors come and go,” he said. “Now these local officials are driving us off a cliff.”

Old age

Bare feet, shabby clothing and communal cooking pots sully the marble floors, chandeliers and wood paneling of the five-story office building in Foshan’s Xiantang village.

According to Chinese tradition, old age should be a time of respect and security. But in an act of defiance, dozens of neighbors, most of them elderly, stormed the building in July 2007.


Their anger was sparked by a demand that they move their shops from land they collectively own to a private market where they would have to pay rent. The new market was part of a five-story condo development on land the village of 3,700 people had recently sold to a developer.

At the same time, villagers say officials dole out just $8 a month to most residents, an amount that has remained constant since the early 1980s.

“I want to get my money back,” said toothless, 91-year-old Cui Neng.

Other protesters guarded 11 boxes of documents bound with tape and locked in a disabled van near a picture of Mao. The boxes contain evidence, they believe, that officials embezzled more than $5 million over the last decade.


It’s illegal for them to examine the documents, they said, so they wait and hope that the central government will send someone to investigate.

This past July, a year after the protest started, village elections were held. But villagers said the new party leader just bought the position from his predecessor.

For months, tattered red protest banners fluttered listlessly outside the village hall. One read: “Officials should go and collect pig manure if they won’t work for the people.”

Though the banners have come down, the protest continues. Some say it’s the longest sustained act of civil disobedience in the history of Communist China.


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mark.magnier@latimes.com