Register when you cheat – the WTO column

(Later also at Chinabiz)
The outside world tends to get pretty upset when governmental departments enter into their ritual registration drive. You can just see, all the clueless bureaucrats sitting together in their huge meeting rooms, wondering what they can do to bring down evil in society.
“Why not let them register,” suggest one of them. Others express approval: that is a good idea. “What then after they register,” asks a smart-ass at the back. “Should we punish the wrong-doers?” “Let’s worry about that later, first they should register,” says the chairman.
I know I should not make too much fun about longstanding traditions in China, people might get upset or – even worse – make me register. In China people know that one register more or less does not make that much of a difference, although every now and then the smart-ass in the corner might get an audience and our group of officials might even put some sanctions on not registering, although that sound pretty nasty and mostly registration is enough.

Chinese websites with news already had to register before we knew the internet existed, but now also non-profit and commercial websites have to register. Although the ISP’s have reacted differently most of then threaten to switch off websites that are not registered and in some cases they have already done so.
Most companies just do not want to go through this fuss and move their operations to Hong Kong or elsewhere in this globalizing world. But I really wonder whether the administrative procedure would have made such a difference. When I got my first fax, I was registered, as was I when I opened my first internet account. Then I was one of the first, now I’m with a hundred million users and it must be very hard to dig up my analog application form to open an internet account with a special office of the police.

Then, not impressed by one registration more or less, even for me the order to Nanjing officials to register their extramarital affairs, here reported by Xinhua, was really a bit over the hill. The reason: “According to marriage law experts, 95 percent of China's convicted corrupt officials had mistresses. In south China's prosperous cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Zhuhai, for instance, every official involved in the 102 corruption cases investigated during 1999 were found to be having affairs.”
Back to basic logic, the idea is when you catch the guys with mistresses, there is a big chance he is corrupt? What then when all guys have mistresses, even those who are not corrupt? That seems a fair assumption. What about all those corrupt officials who are now going to get rid of their mistresses, to avoid being exposed as being corrupt?
There must have been again a lengthy meeting of officials trying to find a solid way to beat corruption. The smart-ass in the corner probably did not say anything, since he has two mistresses and is corrupt.
Privacy concerns of course do not count, when China wants to register:
“Zhuo Zeyuan, a professor in the politics and law department under the Party School of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, said requiring officials to report their marital situation will help put them under public supervision.”

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