Financial Transparency Coalition

Corruption costs China’s economy a pretty penny. A report from China’s own central bank estimates that “up to 18,000 corrupt officials and employees of state-owned enterprises” have absconded with 800 billion yuan, or $123 billion, of state money since the 1990s. In a recent speech given to celebrate China’s Communist Party’s nineteenth anniversary, President Hu Jintao specifically addressed the importance of “rampant corruption” and the impetus to create a “clean government.” And Minxin Pei, a former scholar for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, estimates that China’s government loses as much as 10% of government spending in kickbacks and corruption,...

“Art is a revolt against fate.” It was André Malraux, a French adventurer who traveled China in the 1930s, who said that. Malraux believed art is more than just a source of “aesthetic pleasure.” His most enduring concept was "le musée imaginaire" or "the museum without walls", which asserted that art could be more powerful as an experience outside the traditional confines of museums. At the moment China is headed down a crash course with its own fate. China has had massive problems with bribery, corruption, and illicit financial flows for years. In fact illicit outflows from the People’s Republic of China...

China has had problems with bribery, corruption, and illicit financial flows for years. In fact illicit outflows from the People’s Republic of Chinahave ranged from an annual US$169 billion in 2000 to US$344 billion in 2008. The country is also, by far, the largest transmitter of illicit financial flows in the developing world. And in case it’s not already obvious, let me clarify that these numbers are unbelievably large. For a point of comparison, the PRC’s stock of total external debt in 2008 was $378 billion, just slightly greater than its total illicit outflows in that year alone. Corruption also...

Global Financial Integrity has been warning about illicit financial flows (IFFs) out of The People's Republic of China for years. These outflows have ranged from an annual US$169 billion in 2000 to US$344 billion in 2008. Dev Kar, Lead Economist for GFI, notes trade mispricing, which is the practice of underpricing exports or overpricing imports in order to shift illegally capital abroad, is “the major channel for the transfer of illicit capital from China.” The country is also, by far, the largest transmitter of illicit financial flows...