Global index reflects China's efforts to bring corruption to light
Dan Hough says while China's position on a global ranking of corruption perception has fallen, it doesn't mean the problem has worsened, only that people are more aware of it
If there is one domestic policy that has epitomised Xi Jinping's time in office so thus far, it is his attempts to tackle corruption. His high-profile and wide-ranging campaign to bring graft under control has been followed closely around the world, as thousands of "flies" and, more surprisingly, some of the biggest of the "tigers" have found themselves in trouble.
Corruption campaigns come and go in China, and some have had much broader, political (and personal) aims that went beyond any apparent willingness to get rid of corrupt officials. However, in recent times, none have had either the breadth or the depth of this one.
But how successful has Xi's tirade been? According to the latest data from Transparency International, one of the most well-known global anti-corruption non-governmental organisations, the answer is "not very". Every year it produces a Corruption Perceptions Index where it scores countries on the amount of corruption it believes exists in that state's public sector.
The 2014 index, announced to much fanfare in Berlin this week, shows China's score slipping from 40 to 36. That means a slide from joint 80th in the table to joint 100th. That's still a long way above the bottom two of North Korea and Somalia, who both scored a mere eight, but not the type of result that anti-corruption campaigners in China will have been hoping for.
There is, however, reason to be rather more positive than this gloomy picture might lead us to believe. Firstly, we should be very careful of reading too much into these numbers.
Transparency International officials themselves are careful to stress that the data they produce is based on perceptions - and perceptions can, of course, be deceptive - and that they are not trying to tell us how much corruption actually exists in each given country. Besides, this is about perceptions in the public sector, and deliberately doesn't include things such as business-to-business transactions.
Transparency International is also quick to acknowledge that one could - and many do - find problems with the way they process the data. If they dig deep enough, critics can find all sorts of methodological quirks and oddities that might make one question the validity of the data that has been produced.
