By LUO GUAN
Corruption Correspondent

The Red Cross website assures Chinese donors that their money is good here

LUSHAN (China Daily Show) – The Red Cross has pledged to investigate, after a sum of money intended to line the pockets of the charity’s managers instead made its way into the hands of a needy child orphaned by the recent Sichuan earthquake.

Twelve-year-old Li Meng lost both parents in the April quake, and faces a perilous struggle ahead.

Weeping as he handled the small sum, believed to be around 800 yuan, Li said he was “so, so grateful” for the money but “mystified” as to how he had received it.

Red Cross Society executive vice president Zhao Baige said the funds may have been misdirected from a manager’s bank account, and admitted the scandal-riven society faces a long struggle ahead to reorganize its accounting.

“I will personally resign if we don’t receive enough funding to allow me to peacefully retire within the next few years,” Zhao vowed yesterday.

Zhao also urged the orphan to return some of the cash, saying, “Don’t be selfish, kid – spread a little of the love around.”

In a bid to combat the Red Cross’s battered reputation, Zhao has announced plans to completely rebrand China’s Red Cross as a cash-guzzling tool of charitable corruption, adding: “We can do this.”

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By LUO GUAN
Corruption Correspondent

China: fuck yeah!

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Mixed reactions have greeted the news that China’s unstoppable economic rise will soon hand it a dubious new honor: that of world’s most corrupt nation.

The International Corruption Index (ICI) is organized and compiled by Transparency Internationl and draws on some 130,000 publicly available sources to analyze 177 countries’ public-spending levels, incomes, transparency and general, outright chicanery.

The ICI currently ranks Somalia as number one and China as number eight, behind such failed states as Libya, East Timor, North Korea, Iraq and Egypt.

But the announcement of the latest 2012 survey came with a statement from Transparency International, predicting that China will overtake its African rivals by 2020.

Corruption has long been the bane of the Chinese public and senior Communist Party officials. Many believe it is now so rife, it has seeped into every aspects of public life, from bribing bureaucrats to approve a simple license to ‘tipping’ a teacher before class.

But the state media has angrily denounced the report, with the People’s Daily running a hot-headed leader immediately debunking the claims. “Some pseudo-scientists want to pour filth on China by tarnishing it with garbage ideas,” the editorial raged. “This is scientific factoid and the Chinese people will not be easily fooled.”

Others have cautiously welcomed the news, however – particularly, bent officials.

“Great Leap Forward for China! Roll on 2013, I move to US,” tweeted ‘thenakedofficial,’ an as-yet anonymous Weibo user seemingly intent on goading his four-million-strong following of enraged netizens with corrupt boasts.

Others saw the report as highlighting China’s lack of development internationally.

“Fucking Somalia,” raged one commenter on Redrants.com, a popular Maoist forum. “Always holding us back. Why must we wait eight more years? Come on, PLA: do something!”

“Somalian pirates may have a better navy but soon they will feel Chinese hostages’ hands in their pockets,” predicted another. “Taking your money, lol!”

The complex Chinese response to the index was perhaps best summarized by self-confessed loner, animal torturer and manic nationalist Shan Renping.

“Wherever China is number one, I feel proud,” wrote Shan, 17, on his blog The Global Times. “Number-one corruption, number-one pollution, number-one food scandal. Proud – yet sick at same time.”

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By LUO GUAN
Corruption Correspondent

Du enjoys a rare moment of downtime after molesting a nine-year-old girl

GUIYANG (China Daily Show) – Surrounded by stacked bills amounting to several million dollars, corrupt Guizhou rail official Du Guan admits he’s no longer quite certain why he needs that much money.

“At the time, accumulating hundreds of millions in dirty money seemed like an important thing to do,” Du reflects, fingering a packet of rotting 100-yuan notes.

“But now I’ve got so much, it just seems kind-of obscene and pointless. I do sometimes wonder what the point of it all is,” he says, gesturing at a large pile of diamond-encrusted dog collars.

Over his years riding the greasy pole to become a senior official in the Ministry of Railways, 58-year-old Du has taken bribes, received sweeteners, skimmed commissions, pocketed finders’ fees, looted public funds and accepted lavish gifts totaling around $1.2 billion.

But as he negotiates his way around towers of shrink-wrapped iPads and steps over a crate of Omegas watches still in their original boxes, Du says the countless riches have brought him little in the way of personal enjoyment, professional satisfaction or long-term familial security.

“As the way of these things go, I will likely get caught in a few years’ time and my family will be stripped of all wealth, status, assets and holdings,” Du says. “It would be really great to look back from my cell at a life lived richly and to the full – but, sadly, that is in no way the case.”

Suffering from an array of health problems brought on by a working lifestyle that necessitates excessive smoking, drinking, cheating and lying, Du’s high blood-pressure, bronchial problems and heart condition mean he can no longer properly enjoy the few hours’ of tawdry extramarital sex that is his sole pleasure and birthright.

Instead, most nights, Du slips sadly home from another desultory banquet, counts up more dirty money in his garage and then endures a brief, terse exchange with his estranged wife before collapsing into the spare room.

Du confesses he has no hobbies or interests, cannot invest any ill-gotten gains legally in stocks or shares, and is limited in how he even flaunts his wealth by excessive public scrutiny.

He owns 235 empty apartments, some of which may already have been demolished; Du isn’t sure.

“Accumulating enormous stacks of cash has become an end in itself,” admits a tear-stricken Gu. “I stick it under my bed, bury it, hide it – almost anything, except do anything meaningful with it.”

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By QING GUAN
Corruption Correspondent

After hearing of the news, Mo told this reporter ‘No way’ and ‘Get the fuck outta here’

LANZHOU (China Daily Show) – An adult male who expressed astonishment at the recent revelations surrounding Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s family wealth has been found in a remote Chinese village, anthropologists claim.

Gansu villager Mo Yuan, 49, told reporters that Wen probably earned around 9,000 yuan a month as a state employee, and added that he thought the central government was doing a good job.

After seeing documents reported by the New York Times that calculate Wen’s family wealth at around $2.7 billion, however, Mo’s eyes grew round and saucer-like, and his head shook in disbelief.

“What the fuck…” Mo muttered as he scanned the report. “This makes no sense. How could this possibly be?”

The rare discovery has sent ripples of excitement through the scientific community.

“This is the next best thing to finding Bigfoot,” admitted Boston University anthropologist Dr Robert Creed. “Up until now, we’d heard rumors of deep-seated political naiveté among segments of China’s population but never had the proof.”

And Dr Creed suspects this may be just the tip of the iceberg.

“There may well be more simple-minded people like Mo out there in China – people who would be simply flabbergasted to learn that Hu Jintao has a mistress, for example,” speculated Dr Creed. “We simply don’t know.”

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By RONG REN
Politics Correspondent

Bo says he hasn't felt this lonely since his days as a Communist Party official

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – A puzzled Bo Xilai wondered this morning why his daily beating has been neglected for the last few days.

Bo has been in shuanggui  – a special form of administrative detention, normally used to punish and interrogate corrupt officials in China – since late March, when he was removed from his Politburo post, amid allegations of corruption and murder.

But Bo says the last few days’ incarceration have been unusually boring, with his torturers appearing distracted and the sound of running feet, raised voices and slammed doors indicating that something more important is going on elsewhere.

Bo has reportedly been left alone in his cell all week, with nothing but a copy of that day’s Beijing Daily – which experts say could be a deliberate form of  psychological torture.

“He’s been banging on his cell door the whole time, demanding to know what’s up,” said one guard. “I think he misses the attention. He also wants to k now who the hell ‘Chen Guangcheng’ is.”

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By Fu Ren
Crime Correspondent

Officials warn that the Batsignal is a form of dangerous air pollution, punishable by death

CHONGQING (China Daily Show) – Following the removal of two of China’s leading crimefighters, an exasperated public has turned to Batman for help in the endless fight against corruption.

“Only a tortured playboy, whose parents were taken from him at a young age and who then swore to fight back against the very thing that stole them, can save us now,” said one exasperated Chongqing resident.

Last night, however, 24-year-old Bo Guagua was nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any sign of the Bo-mobile, a gleaming red Ferrari often seeing racing to the scene of an urgent date.

Bo’s faithful manservant, a paternalistic Englishman known only as Neil, has also not been sighted for many months, neighbours say.

“Guagua cannot be Bruce Wayne of China,” said a nearby resident. “Bruce Wayne was just a billionaire who lead a callow life of non-stop partying, a clever subterfuge for his secret existence. But he never received any scholarships.”

In China’s Gotham City, Chongqing, the mood is ugly.

Corruption is rife, with many top officials saying they won’t get out of bed for less than 10,000 yuan. A police crackdown in 2009 led to hundreds of arrests for graft; one former mayor is said to have  had 8,000 iPads buried under his garden pond.

“No one needs that many iPads,” observed a senior prosecutor.

But Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun, the gangbusting pair who both swore to break the city’s mafia stranglehold, have since vanished – believed snatched by arch-nemesis “the Party.”

Earlier this months, thousands of citizens took to the streets to demand Batman’s help. Many say that only an anonymous and unaccountable figure, such as Batman, would be suitable to enforce proper rule of law in China.

Batman's last appearance in China angered local goons

The country has not had a proper vigilante since the golden days of the Maoman, an obese hero said to have been “faster than a speeding rickshaw and able to swim the Yangtze River in a single stroke.”

Maoman’s urgent 1950s purges rid the streets of many citizens – some of whom might have been criminals at some point, experts say. Chongqing citizens say they need the Maoman or his ilk back.

“A tough-talking out-of-town cop, whose maverick style bent the wrong noses out of shape?” one taxi driver told our reporter. “I don’t know who this ‘Commissioner Jim Gordon’ you speak of is –but that sounds a lot like Wang Lijun.”

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A special China Daily Show investigation

Spy? Businessman? Bagman? Murdered? Hungover? We could go on

BEIJING, CHENGDU, DALIAN (China Daily Show) – The encrypted telegram came in the early hours of the morning. “Mate, I’m sorry about last night…” it began. The implication, though, was obvious: 41-year-old Neil Heywood’s death in a Chongqing hotel room in the twilight hours of a balmy November night was no accident.

It was murder.

Most probably.

To try to uncover  the  truth, our anonymous investigative team set out to China. But in modern-day China, under a secrecy-obsessed Communist regime, the truth is rarely pure and never simple.

We flew to Dalian, the eco port-city in northern China, where the deposed Politburo member Bo Xilai is first said to have met Heywood, a British businessman who did business things in China.

Residents seemed to just go about their business blithely, seemingly unaware that, just years previously, at some location somewhere in this modern coastal city, Bo was introduced to Heywood, likely shaking his hand, neither aware they had just made a fateful pact that would end in corruption, double-dealing, death – and hot, steamy sex.

Most people we spoke to either didn’t know what we were talking about – or weren’t saying. The atmosphere of intrigue and silence was claustrophobic. There was no sign of any Harrow-educated, Aston Martin-driving expats anywhere to be seen.

Rattled, we departed for Chongqing, determined not to give up until we had at least one good, juicy, vague, anonymous quote.

Chongqing, the mountain megacity of 30 million, nestled next to the sensitive border regions of Tibet, is a sizzling hotbed of crime, criminals and criminality, with a dash of sleaze. Yet on our visit, a pervasive wall of silence met our inquiries, according to our interpreter.

It is in Chongqing, where Bo was Party Secretary, that the shadowy Heywood may have helped Bo’s son, Bo Guagua, learn English, and aided his entrance to Harrow School, by turning up with a big bag of money and asking if Bo Guagua could go to Harrow School.

But Heywood’s life here was so secretive, he didn’t even have a Facebook account, making it near-impossible to find out what he was up to.

According to reports, Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, ordered the intelligence-affiliated Heywood to divorce his wife and swear an oath of fealty to the Bos. When Heywood nobly refused, he was immediately killed – one year later.

“It’s obvious, innit?” said an Englishman who claimed to have met Heywood briefly in a hotel bar but who refused to give his name, for possible fear that he may be in danger. “He was givin’ ’er one. Then the ’usband found out and… I mean, why else would you ask for ’im to divorce? Stands to reason. Yeah.”

Armed with this stunning revelation, we returned to Beijing. But as Heywood’s family continues to tearfully protest that he died of natural causes from a congenital heart condition, the suspicious environment on the streets of the capital tell a different story.

A smoggy cloud covers up the spring sky and a chill wind of fear runs through its narrow hutong avenues – an Englishman died somewhere in these strange lands and we can only speculate and conjecture as to why and how. And that is what we will continue to do, until something else comes along.

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Denying the allegations, an official said that the Caymans' beaches aren't as nice as China's

By LUO GUAN
Railways and Corruption Correspondent

GRAND CAYMAN (China Daily Show) – Despite a recent report that detected “no signs of life” at the Ministry of Railways, a  blueprint has been leaked to foreign media that shows an unannounced – but ongoing – new project.

The secretive high-speed rail line, that directly links Beijing to the Cayman Islands, was confirmed yesterday by officials from the island chain, who added that they welcomed their new numbered-account holders.

“This modern technology means that someone will be able to take a gigantic bung today to ignore basic safety procedures,” said a spokesman from Mafiabank, “and be on a bullet-train the next day, just in time to arrive for cocktail hour.”

The news has not been reported in China, however, for fear that it might contradict the findings of an advanced scientific probe sent into the Ministry of Railways, following the disastrous high-speed rail crash in July in Wenzhou that killed at least 40.

The probe reported back that there was “absolutely no sign of intelligent life whatsoever” at what remains of the world’s largest reactionary Stalinist bureaucracy. The words prompted officials to immediately begin burying news of the crash and replace reports with updates about the ongoing good weather.

“The citizens are thirsty for ice-cream – not depressing news,” scowled one spokesman at a recent press conference. The government is keen to move on from high-speed rail scandals, experts say, fearing that a hush-hush project, connecting state offices to a remote tax haven without an extradition treaty, could easily be misconstrued.

Nevertheless, news of the top-secret railway has prompted one department to respond with the final word on the matter.

“There is no further comment necessary, as this is a private line and will never be open to the public,” pointed out the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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