出賣中國：權貴資本主義的起源與共產黨政權的潰敗

by Minxin Pei

　　2012年爆發的薄熙來事件讓中共高層的貪污腐敗問題與連帶的政治鬥爭登上新聞頭條。隨後，中共中央政治局常委周永康、中央辦公廳主任令計畫、中央軍委副主席郭伯雄、徐才厚等人接連被判刑，固然展現了習近平打貪的決心，另一方面也讓人好奇：中國的貪腐問題到底有多嚴重？下一個被抓的「老虎」又會是誰？
　　
　　美國知名中國研究專家裴敏欣在《出賣中國》中，利用中國媒體與司法部門已經公開的260個貪腐案件進行深度的分析比較，系統性地探索這些貪腐案件牽連的廣度、深度、運作模式、制度與歷史起源，以及對中國國家與共產黨當局造成的危害。裴敏欣指出，大規模貪腐的源頭是1990年代中共不完全的產權改革與中央權力下放的結果。中共菁英刻意製造法律上財產權的模糊空間以上下其手、中飽私囊。隨著中國經濟的騰飛，以權換錢的誘惑與日俱增，也成為加官進爵的不二法門。各單位「一把手」與企業家、黑道勾結，非法出賣國有企業、礦產、土地、官位，成為普遍性、長期性現象。這不僅侵害本該屬於中國老百姓的權益、在地方出現「黑道治國」之惡習，也在黨內造成上下交相賊、劣幣驅逐良幣的「塌方式腐敗」。中國統治結構腐敗之深，已經到了如蛆附骨的程度。
　　
　　★缺乏民主機制，打貪難以落實★
　　★但即使發生革命，貪腐集團仍能掌握中國★
　　
　　《出賣中國》語重心長地指出，由於貪腐已經成為中國共產黨內部生態的一環，不僅大刀闊斧的打貪難以展開，出於政治企圖的打貪反而只會製造統治菁英之間的猜忌與仇恨，危害獨裁政權的凝聚力。
　　
　　與俄羅斯等其他後共產主義國家相比可發現，能有效解決貪腐問題的是民主機制，然而中共不可能主動改變它所依附的政治與經濟體制，因為這正是中共壟斷權力的基礎。就算因為內部分裂、經濟動盪、群眾起義，或對外戰爭失利而導致中共的突然瓦解，中國也難以立即迎來民主，因為權貴資本主義的遺毒──巨大的貧富差距、黑道治國、囊括大量經濟資源的權貴──仍會在脆弱的新民主體制中享有極大的政治實力。
　　
　　本書以嚴謹的學術方法分析中共的貪腐現象以及其與威權主義、經濟發展、民主轉型之間的關係，並對中國未來做出清醒而沉痛的預測。對任何關心中國與中國對台灣之影響的讀者，本書都不容錯過。　

Genres: China, Politics, Economics, Nonfiction, History, Political Science, Business

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 22, 2016

About the author

Minxin Pei is a political scientist and the director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College. Prior to this position, he was a senior associate in the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and was a professor at Princeton University from 1992 to 1998. He holds a B.A. in English from Shanghai International Studies University, an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Pittsburgh and an M.A. and PhD in political science from Harvard University. He is an expert in Sino-American relations.

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There have been many reports about corruption in China, but much of it based on a few cases and/or anecdotal evidence. Minxin Pei seeks to remedy that in his book China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay with a data set of 260 cases of several different kinds of corruption in “Post-Tiananmen China”.

Pei argues corruption in China is not the result of “a few bad apples” (or in this case a lot of bad apples.) Instead corruption is institutional – the product of post-Tiananmen changes “significantly altering the incentives, risk-reward calculations, and ability to collude among Chinese officials.” Of these changes Pei highlights three. First, there are the practical and incremental changes in property rights that created the initial opportunities and incentives. Measures were taken by the Communist Party of China (CPC) that separated control (use) rights from ownership rights, but failed to clarify what ownership rights actually meant. This could lead to conflicting claims stemming from a poor definition of property ownership. Where there is the presence of residual rights (workers in state owned enterprises, residents in housing built on publically owned land, farmers tilling leased land) a lack of societal process to actually determine who owns what means that those with the ability to bribe (business) usually win out.

Second, administrative decentralization resulted in a transfer of control from the centre to local elites, granting them new powers (such as the power of appointment) that enables them to extract bribes. As such, a vertical decentralization of power combined with a horizontal concentration of power at the local level. Newly empowered officials can play a role in “settling” property disputes, often by taking bribes. Third, this empowering decentralization occurred without proper accountability mechanisms put in place to ensure corruption did not take place. In brief - there are few deterrents to bribing in China.

The end result of these institutional changes has been the creating of competing networks of officials, businessmen, law enforcement and the mafia out to pay and seek rents to further their own ends. Pei seeks to map out the kinds of corruption they engage in. First, there is maiguan maiguan (buying and selling) of official/government positions. In these “vertical” cases underlings give bribes to their bosses for promotions and career advancements. Given the costs of these bribes, the money for them usually comes from some other kind of corruption (either lower level bribes, loans from shady business or the mafia or from being on the take). Unfortunately, this means that instead of the most qualified advancing forward, it usually means the person able to generate the most amount of money from corruption is able to advance. Pei refers to this as “Bad money driving out good money.”

Second there is “horizontal” collusion among insiders, usually with strong interpersonal connections, which is aimed at enabling corrupt practices in the system. The successful execution of a corrupt practice depends upon the cooperation of a small number of insiders in the same government agency in which authority is shared, colleagues of direct knowledge or each other’s work and bureaucratic procedure are specified. As such, collusion is necessary to preventing one from exercising a “veto” over a particular activity.

Third there is collusion between “insiders and outsiders” – typically officials colluding with businessmen* where there are bribes for favours. This could be anything from securing and/or keeping contracts, overlooking regulations, obtaining approvals or licences or the buying/selling of state-owned assets for more/less than they are worth with profits shared. Pei argues that collusion with business is the most lucrative and therefore other forms of corruption are usually aimed at this end. For example, buying and selling of public office is pervasive because it facilitates collusion with the private sector.

As the subtitle suggests, Pei believes that corruption in China has ultimately created the seeds of regime decay. Pei is very bold in his assessment that corruption is widespread and will eventually “destroy the institutional integrity of the Chinese party-state” (263) in three ways. First, the endemic corruption subverts political authority. As individuals seek private benefits, they will not be advancing regime goals. Second, as different networks of colluding, corrupt officials compete for power, it destroys the necessary unity that keeps the party in power. Third, corruption ultimately undermines the effectiveness and loyalty of “pillar institutions” (law enforcement, health and safety and environmental protection agencies) upon which the party-state’s survival rests.

Pei is not optimistic that this situation can be fixed anytime soon. Corruption is portrayed endemic and likely to become even more so as corrupt officials are more successful at advancement than uncorrupt officials. He ends the book on a very pessimistic note: “The prospect of genuine market-orientated economic reform is equally unpromising because such a change would eliminate the source of rents for the ruling autocratic elites.” Even if regime break down and an “Arab-Spring-style” mass revolt brough about change, “The legacies of crony capitalism – great inequality of wealth, local mafia states and the entrenchment of privileged tycoons – will enable thouse who have acquired enormous illicit wealth under the old regime to wield outsized political influence in a struggling new democracy that will have poor odds of survival.” (268)

Importantly, Pei argues that corruption in China is different from corruption in other post-Communist states. Whereas in the former Soviet Union corruption is characterized by oligarchs, in China there is, strangely, a more equal-opportunity playing field for anyone to get involved so long as they are crafty (or corrupt) enough. Further, as is clear from the argument above, in China corruption is a result of state choices made in the post-Tiananmen era where as in post-USSR countries corruption resulted from a vacuum of power.

This book was more academic than I was expecting – the title to me suggested that it would be more of a breezy account (maybe I was ignoring the “Harvard University Press” logo a little too much). This is not the case at all. Pei has done his best to provide a scholarly account of how corruption in China works, creating a model using case studies found in newspapers that he has pieced together. The chapters are structured and overall the feeling of the book is pretty formal – often using economic terminology (ie: “rents”) and logic. In other words, it’s interesting but please do not think it is beach reading.

In the end, Pei provides useful data on an understudied phenomenon: in Canada, corruption and its implications for foreign firms or SOE investment in our country, is virtually absent from trade discussions. This book provides a very clear explanation of some of the government and business practices that other countries can expect to deal with when it comes to China. (Yes, many businesses successfully do business in corrupt societies, but what are the risks of a free-trade agreement with them?)

I did, however, find some of the conclusions a little strong. Certainly 260 cases of corruption (albeit involving multiple people) is a decent dataset, but China is a country of a billion people. As such, even though Pei provides decent evidence, readers need to be careful in extrapolating across the entire country. There’s good reason to believe that corruption is harming the Chinese party-state, and the Chinese people, but whether or not it is leading to regime “decay” remains to be seen. Many corrupt nations have existed for decades, if not centuries. It is not clear why China too will not survive, if imperfectly.

*almost all of the cases under review/study are men. Pei uses the gendered term accordingly and I do so here as well.

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Mao died in 1976, China was at a crossroad of her destiny. The Chairman’s politically exhilarating but economically disastrous policies had put the country in a fix. It was Deng Xiaoping who succeeded Mao that put China back on rails and steered her to prosperity by scrapping ideological underpinnings and ushering in capitalist reforms in the 1990s. However, the power to set policy and take crucial decisions was still vested in the hands of a coterie of powerful party bosses. With advancing decentralization that came in the wake of Deng’s economic reforms, party chiefs in the provinces and prefectures wielded unrestrained power and liberal delegation of authority was transferred to them. Transparency of financial transactions and installation of an open market mechanism to channel them were not the priorities of the party elite. Consequently, collusion between the party officials and private businessmen began to have a clinching effect on major economic decisions taken by corrupt officials at all levels. This went on in the party, the government and state-owned enterprises (SOE). Corrosion of the political authority of the party led to regime decay. The degeneration of the administrative apparatus was stemmed in 2012 when Xi Jinping assumed power and immediately ordered a crackdown on corruption. As ordinary Chinese watched in disbelief, hundreds of officials having very high ranks and their accomplices were booked and mercilessly brought to justice. This book analyses the systematic failures that encouraged foul play, the methods by which unscrupulous elements carried on their murky business and the prospects of the communist party which is hampered by the bogey of corruption. Minxin Pei is Tom and Margot Pritzker Professor of Government and Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College in the US.

Crony capitalism is an instrumental union between capitalists and politicians designed to allow the former to acquire wealth, legally or otherwise, and the latter to seek and retain power. Liberal capitalism, with its appendages like democracy and transparency, is anathema to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its cronies. Collusive corruption came to the fore in 1990s, after the Tiananmen Square massacre in which thousands of protesting students were mauled and crushed under the wheels of army tanks driven into the midst of the young people in a bid to clear the square. It was one of the most horrific and brutal acts of oppression by a regime on its citizens. Opening up of the economy reached fever pitch after this incident because the Chinese government was anxious to ensure a speedy improvement in the economic lot of the people and mollify them. But collusive corruption is more destructive than individual corruption because such behaviour destroys the organizational fabric of the state, increases the difficulty of detection and produces greater financial gains for the perpetrators. With the administrative decentralization came the collusion of party chiefs and their subordinates with businessmen. Local chiefs were now powerful enough to appoint and control the career prospects of subordinates. Transfer of state assets to private entrepreneurs put more problems on the table. Reforms on ownership rights under opaque regulations offered more avenues for corruption. Real estate and land transactions, infrastructure and construction, mining and SOE restructuring are the most corruption-prone areas in China. However, the perpetrators of graft appear to yield as soon as they are taken into custody. In a bid to get leniency of sentences, they make a clean breast of it all and disclose the names and deeds of their co-conspirators. Investigation into totally unrelated cases thus leads to exposure in other areas. China’s judiciary is also complicit. Unlike conventional courts of law that strive to uphold the rule of law, Chinese judiciary is just another arm of the Communist party apparatus and functions as an instrument of party autocracy. It is governed by a strict hierarchy of party men who are themselves venal.

Organizational reforms in CCP in 1984 transferred the control of an organizational unit from another unit two levels above it to the immediately superior party committee. This brought in the practice of maiguan maiguan (buying and selling of offices) by which cronies could be inserted at any level in the bureaucracy. Disciplinary inspection committees, which controlled foul play to some extent, were weakened. The affordability of bribes for superior positions posed another dilemma. Local officials were paid low salaries and so couldn’t manage the required kickbacks. Such people sought the help of businessmen and crime bosses who advanced the requisite sums. Usually, funding for buying positions came from embezzled public funds, savings from previous corruption income and money received from public sources. This makes the author claim that institutional flaws of the Leninist party state is the root cause of regime decay rather than moral failings of its individual members.

Pei compares the economic after-effects of East Bloc countries to China’s experiment with the same scope and magnitude, but with the party still in command. Transfer of state assets to individuals spawned a kleptocracy in Russia, but this process was comparatively transparent in Poland, Czech Republic, the Baltic States and Hungary. Appropriation of power and financial wellbeing of the mafia-politician nexus bodes ill for the future of China especially if the party apparatus is suddenly or violently dismantled. The author makes a prescient warning that if a regime transition should come, the initiating event is more likely to be a breakdown of the decaying autocracy, possibly induced by a split among the elites inside the party-state, a devastating economic shock, an Arab Spring-style mass revolt that the authorities fail to crush quickly, a disastrous external adventure, or a combination of such events (p.268).

The book is tiresome to read with its monotonous drawl of repeating data and the author making extensive conclusions from hypothetical evaluation of the actual cases of corruption. The entire analysis is based on a dataset of just 260 cases. Frequent and indiscriminate use of statistical concepts of mean, median and standard deviation in analyzing the amount of wealth illegally acquired, the tenure of prison terms awarded to the culprits and the number of years they could carry on with their trade lends an aura of armchair intellectual exercise to the whole book rather than providing a down to earth picture of the ground reality. However, it must also be remembered that China is not going to allow foreign researchers to interview its convicts in the foreseeable future. Each chapter in the book begins with a quote from President Xi Jinping’s anticorruption speeches made in 2013-14. Detailed appendices showing the data on individual convictions are given, but when Pei repeatedly mentions corrupt deals and the names of perpetrators in the main text, it gets a bit tedious for the reader.

The book is recommended.

[Eddie Choo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good look at corruption in China

Pei Minxun looks at corruption in China in a very detailed manner. From this book, corruption looks like an entrenched part of the system. Given also recent discoveries about the corrupt relatives of the highest leaders in the country, it looks like corruption is a feature of China's governance. I only wished there was a more explicit framework - otherwise this is a very good book on corruption in China.

[Duong Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the greatest and most comprehensive book on crony cap. topic.

[YHC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not unfamiliar with corruption and collusion in Asian countries, it seems to be in our blood. Pei used all the official published data (nothing confidential, so he was not worried about being assassinated) to explain why economical liberation won't be enough to Xi to finish the corruption, because the political liberation should follow up, otherwise the whole system is still held by these corruptive people in power. "缺乏民主機制，打貪難以落實。"

He mentioned a magic number: 7 . He said the corruptive group usually need to be surrounding around core 7 people to form collusion because if too small, things won't be done, too big, the benefice will be diluted.

The whole system is so rotten that courts are bribed and bought, no real justice. That is why he even considered the rotten to the roots with crony system.


「區域性腐敗和領域性腐敗交織，窩案串案增多；用人腐敗和用權腐敗交織，權權、權錢、權色交易頻發；官商勾結和上下勾連交織，利益輸送手段隱蔽、方式多樣。」－習近平，2014年10月16日

"大規模貪腐的源頭是1990年代中共不完全的產權改革與中央權力下放的結果。中共菁英刻意製造法律上財產權的模糊空間以上下其手、中飽私囊。隨著中國經濟的騰飛，以權換錢的誘惑與日俱增，也成為加官進爵的不二法門。各單位「一把手」與企業家、黑道勾結，非法出賣國有企業、礦產、土地、官位，成為普遍性、長期性現象。這不僅侵害本該屬於中國老百姓的權益、在地方出現「黑道治國」之惡習，也在黨內造成上下交相賊、劣幣驅逐良幣的「塌方式腐敗」"
"後毛澤東時代的中國依然被一個絲毫無意讓政治體制自由化的列寧主義政權所統治，這個政權也完全不想放棄壟斷權力。但中國又和後蘇維埃的俄國不同。在俄國，舊政權的迅速崩解使得一小群寡頭得以攫取大量財富，但大多數菁英什麼都分不到。而中國的統治菁英依然牢牢掌控政權，有無限的機會把國家的財富慢慢據為己有。"

"中國的權貴資主義是一種獨特的「多層次寡頭制」（multilayered oligarchy），也就是各個行政區都有一小群和地方黨政領導依附在一起的菁英，他們在中國的黨國體制中不算什麼高官，卻擁有與其地位不相稱的大權和掠奪能力。然而，雖然地方政治菁英是權貴資本主義的得利者，私人企業家的角色也不可或缺。中國權貴資本主義另一個特色是，政治菁英或紅二代們並沒有辦法把所有財富都據為己有。雖然他們可以貪的很多，但許多財富似乎是被小老百姓出身的私人企業家拿走了，例如導言中提到的樓忠福和王春成這些人，以及無數和地方官員共謀獲利的人。我們的研究顯示，至少在初期階段，中國的權貴資本主義是比較開放的，私人企業家可以靠賄賂進入權錢交織的小圈圈，而且私人企業家要比政治菁英更有能力發揮國有資產的效能，提升其價值。問題在於把無效能的國有資產轉變為有效能的私有資產時，這中間的好處只有少數有關係的生意人才能享有，一般中國老百姓是享受不到的，而老百姓才是這些資產的真正所有人。"
"，中國的私人財富大多聚集在房地產業和礦業這些勾結腐敗叢生的產業。一項評估指出，在2015年身價超過十億美元的中國富豪中，其中有1/4是搞房地產的，資訊科技業是少數例外。尋租的私人企業家和政治菁英的緊密結合使自由資本主義的前景黯淡。這種聯盟具有排他性，因為這樣才能保障成員的租金並代代相傳。其結果不會是自由資本主義，而是寡頭的親貴主義。"
"另一個對中共更為致命的政治結果是，政權衰敗會讓機會主義式的強人有機會用反腐敗的名義摧毀所有政治對手。由於腐敗太過普遍，又多是勾串性質，強人就可以藉機把對手集團連根拔起。要指控對手貪污並不難，而且由於對手下面的支持者和親信都勾串在一起，一人倒就全部都倒。"

"地方官員和執法人員建立互信和合作的機制之一是透過買官賣官。我們已經看到，買官賣官對於地方官員和生意人勾結以及國企幹部之間的勾結是很關鍵的機制。在地方執法機關內，買官賣官也扮演了讓公安一起貪污的功能。向部屬賣官的治安首長本身就貪污腐敗，當然容易被黑社會引誘入夥，而向他買過官的公安就為成為黑社會的保護傘。同樣的道理，靠賄賂升官的公安也比較會收黑社會的錢，因為他們總要把投資的錢賺回來。"

http://cnpolitics.org/2016/11/crony-c...
https://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/201410...
https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20160301...
http://www.cw.com.tw/article/article....
http://www.storm.mg/article/289091
http://www.storm.mg/article/289113
https://www.thenewslens.com/article/7...
https://www.thenewslens.com/article/7...

[D · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all know the Chinese government is corrupt, but this book is eye-opening in terms of explaining how it actually works. Some of the things that are happening in China are quite ridiculous, everyone has a price...

[Robert Muller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, especially after the first few chapters. But then we got into the weeds, and they stayed weeds.

The theory of collusive crony capitalism he presents is compelling, but at the end of the book, it remains a theory, not science. And extending it to regime decay is no more than an afterthought.

1. If you're going to talk about regime decay as a dependent variable (outcome), then you need to define it and measure it. Pei does neither. What is a "regime"? What does it mean for such a thing to "decay"? Pei presents no evidence for the decay of the Leninist regime in Beijing at all. It would be interesting, for example, to look at the corruption in the military (several big cases in the last few years) and the level of preparedness of that military.

2. This cries out for comparative analysis--that is, talking about different regimes and how collusive crony capitalism produces decay in them (Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, etc.). The China focus, while interesting, doesn't illuminate the bigger picture.

3. Pei denigrates mathematical modeling but tries to use means and medians to make his points. His data is frankly anecdotal. And to make claims about prevalence (how much crony capitalism there is) you need good data on crime rates (incidence per capita, not just a list of cases). And that leads you into the basic problem with criminology: reported crime is not "real" crime. Victimization statistics help, but are very hard to produce. And that leads into the whole area of "victimless" crimes, which is very relevant for crony capitalism and organized crime. How do you effectively measure crimes without victims?

4. And the anecdotal data is very biased. Taken from legal cases reported in Chinese publications, he is dealing with cases that are the people who got caught and punished by the very regime he's analyzing. How is that not biased? What about the people who didn't get caught, got off, or went unpunished?

5. His notion of "organized crime" seems difficult to justify. The US defines organized crime in the RICO statute as a pattern of racketeering activity connected to an enterprise (legal or illegal). This seems much broader than Pei's concept, which he never defines. But to make the claim that "organized crime" didn't exist in the Leninist CCP regime before 1990 is frankly silly. OC has existed in China forever, and certainly since the 19th century, under all regimes. Admittedly, that's a strong claim unproven by any research on my part, but I have to say I believe it more than Pei's claim. And what about police and governmental corruption?

Finally, I agree with other reviewers that the academic tone makes the book drag, and the endless repetition of the basic points illustrated by endless textual summaries of the tabular data (long paragraphs relating the stories of the crooks) makes for very heavy going.

[Tu Can · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just my 2 cents,
For anyone who really wants to find out the roots of corruption in China,
or just wants to seek for a freaking surprising coincidence in system and social decay between China and the countries which have followed socialism, like Eastern Europe ones and some other representatives from Asia.
or want to know, to put it simply, the economic mechanisms of China for your doing business purposes.
All are welcome.
This book might be a condensed-but-sharp gift for you.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

An overview of corruption in China arising from crony capitalism. Huge amount of data, though a chunk of the methodology is questionable. Despite that though, Pei succeeds in painting a broad and general picture of what is going on within the ranks of the CCP.

[Xandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this could have been a really good book, and one I would have loved, but it was written like an extended academic paper and I just couldn't finish it off. The extended discussion on the model behind corruption didn't really illuminate things, and (at a minimum) came too early on.

[流川枫 · Rating 5 out of 5]

放下家国情怀，放弃身份认同。真正的中国是由乌泱泱的十四亿牲口组成，“低等”牲口每天悄无声息地死去，“高等”牲口每天沐猴而冠酒池肉林，所有人都像动物一样活着，没有历史没有记忆也没有情感没有思想。

此刻我的心情就像这段话一样——“我真应该感谢这个时代，让我在这个年纪就看清了这么多事，关于婚姻、家庭、社会、政府的本质，过去的错误，新的生活方式。个人主义和自由的珍贵，人的一生如此短暂。就算一切尘埃落定，我恐怕也回不到过去了。”

[Sense Hofstede · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not always easy to read due to the large amount of data, but a compelling argument why the 21st Century is never going to be the century of this China. Damning.

[China1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

第一次看到這樣系統性的分析中國政權腐敗問題，很難得。不過數據和内容整理還是有些片面（當然，原始數據很難獲取和驗證）。最有現實意義的是描寫法院和監管機構的第七章。全書最後一段的結束語，讓人絕望！

[古 张 · Rating 3 out of 5]

無甚新意，但依然對國內腐敗的規模之大印象深刻

[聿 邓 · Rating 5 out of 5]

腐敗的教科書。

[Taxiu · Rating 4 out of 5]

封面和標題有點聳人聽聞的意思。基於公開資料寫出這樣一部質性研究作品也算不易，但總覺還有進步空間。

[Hengyu · Rating 3 out of 5]

只能算是对中国的政商勾結、官黑勾结、权钱交易、卖官鬻爵等现象的描述总结，里面很多类别都需要更细致的研究，比如红色资本和权贵金融、基层法院的审判运作、商人花钱买人大代表和政协委员资格等等，只用“权贵资本主义”来概括就太简单了。

[Major Kusanagi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pessimistic assessment of how political corruption would curtail China's future economic growth.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed and well structured. A pretty insightful book about how corruption actually works in China. Sometimes the enumeration of cases seems too much and becomes a liitle tiring to read for me.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good. Though dry and a bit repetitive.

[Vincenzo Tagle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Minxin Pei central argument is that the endemic crony capitalism in China right now is a product of the poorly-designed property rights reform and decentralization of power in the post-Tiananmen era. A proper institutionalist, Pei lays out the structural origins of the corruption networks that elites in China have established. The unclear ownership over assets and consequent competing claims over them necessitated a collusion between political and economic elites for them to share the spoils and avoid mutual vetoes. Political decentralization that allowed local party chiefs to have control over bureaucracies and the career ladders of their subordinates have allowed them to establish networks of patronage and corruption and consolidate their power.

A unique element to the kind of crony capitalism in China is its collusive nature. Pei argues that it is both a form of risk reduction and a way to override individual veto power that may lead the elites to block each other from extracting rents unless they themselves collude. But the core of his argument lies in the messy and complex disentanglement and transfer of state assets to private individuals which opened up opportunities for elites to enrich themselves.

[Nguyễn Duy Khánh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tư bản thân hữu là một hiện tượng diễn ra nhiều nhất tại các nước đang phát triển, đây chính là nguồn gốc của tham nhũng và lũng đoạn quyền lực. Nó cũng là nguyên nhân của bất ổn chính trị, tạo ra những bất công tong tiếp cận các cơ hội mưu sinh, thăng tiến cũng như phân bổ lợi ích và hơn thế, nó cổ vũ, đồng thời là chỗ dựa cho những thế lực muốn mafia hóa quyền lực Nhà nước. Phạm vi của cuốn sách là đưa ra nghiên cứu về Trung Quốc.

Cuốn sách này là một công trình nghiên cứu mà tác giả đưa ra lập luận nhìn từ gốc độ nghiên cứu các vụ án đã được biết đến nhiều trên báo chí – các báo chí chính thức và các ấn phẩm uy tín cao ở Trung Quốc, mốc thời gian được tác giả sử dụng để giả thích cho công trình xoay quanh 1990 (bởi trước đó tình trạng này không xuất hiện nhiều). Tác giả đưa ra rất nhiều dẫn chứng và thống kê cụ thể để làm sáng tỏ cho từng quan điểm, những dẫn chứng này chi tiết và rât rõ ràng.

Chúng ta có thể đối chiếu sang VN và tùy hiểu biết của mỗi người sẽ có sự so sánh giống khác như thế nào.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author probes for the underlying causes of corruption and collusion in contemporary China. Adopting an institutional outlook, Pei points to the purposefully ill-defined property rights and market privatization in the post-Mao Leninist regime as the main factors contributing to its entrenched crony capitalism. Pei's conclusion is inevitably gloomy: the authoritarian state is fractured, looted, and given a hypothetical transition to liberal democracy and liberal capitalism such the outcome remains bleak. If you ever wonder about regime and market reforms, about whether reformers should unleash political or economic changes first, Pei seems to lean toward a politics-first/institutionalist stance.

[Marukokid216]

1. Tư bản thân hữu là gì? Là việc câu kết giữa kinh tế và chính trị, kinh tế thu lợi nhuận, chính trị gia tăng quyền lực ảnh hưởng, với bản chất là việc cướp bóc những tài sản trên danh nghĩa thuộc về Nhà nước.
2. Nguyên nhân:
- Phân cấp mà không xác định rõ trách nhiệm có thể khiến tham nhũng ở cấp địa phương thêm trầm trọng.
- Sự sụp đổ của chính quyền trung ương hoặc yếu kém của Nhà nước
- Thời kì hậu Thiên An Môn, cải cách cục bộ và xác định quyền tài sản chưa rõ ràng giữa các tài sản thuộc Nhà nước

[John Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very systemic study on corruption in China. Convincing.

[Clement Ying · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece.

Can be regarded as a footnote to Daron Acemoglu's Why Nations Fail.