Corruption is a fact-of-life in Asia and China may be one of the few country in Asia doing something about it. Country rankings in Asia are dismal compared to Western democracies and Singapore.
The Corruption Perception Index of 2010 says most of Asia is “very” corrupt—the smaller number is better and 178 is the worst global rank.
Of 178 countries ranked for corruption, Myanmar (Burma) scores 176 and is tied with Afghanistan as two of the most corrupt countries on the planet.
Iraq is 175. Laos and Cambodia are 154. Vietnam is 116, and Indonesia is 110.
Even India, the world’s largest democracy, is ranked 87. Singapore, for comparison, is tied for first place as one of the least corrupt countries.
In fact, two of the least corrupt countries in Asia are Thailand and China tied at 78.
The power of the Chinese peasant demonstrated in this video may have something to do with China’s improved score as one of the least corrupt nations in Asia.
It may come as a surprise to many Western critics but in rural China, democracy’s ballot box has been active at the village level since the mid 1980s.
In 1997, The Independent reported that China’s rural peasants were discovering the power of the ballot box.
“Under Communist Party rule, village elections are the only example of one-person, one-vote democracy in China. Launched in the mid-eighties, they were originally introduced to replace the village communes that were dissolved after the Cultural Revolution.”
Few outside China paid much attention to this move toward China’s rural democracy. Nearly one million villages hold elections and each time there is an election, the peasants learn more about democracy in action.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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