Interesting interview with a former high-ranking Chinese Communist Party member who became a dissident. He talks about the institutional corruption in politics.
If you’re in that system, they’ll say, oh, your son should be a CEO. If you say, no, he shouldn’t, then they say, how can he not? If your son can’t be one then ours can’t be one either. Then they’d push you out of the boat. So if you’re in the boat, you’re corrupt. Everyone has a villa and they give you one. One in Beijing, one in Hangzhou, one in Suzhou, one in Shanghai. You say you don’t want it. What? But even the provincial leaders have villas, how can you not? It’s legal, take it. So if I can say I’m not corrupt it’s because I was an official in the 1980s when it was different. There wasn’t so much money and privileges.