China corruption clampdown hits luxury clubs
CRI, September 10, 2016
An undated photo shows a luxury club in downtown Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, was closed. [File Photo/China.com.cn]
It's not a good time to be in the luxury private club business in China.
The Daily Telegraph reports that several clubs in cities such as Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been closed in recent months, whilst others have suffered from severely declining revenue.
It's all down to the success of President Xi Jinping's high-profile crackdown on corruption amongst government officials.
Apparently, the clubs were a popular place to conduct so-called "graft corruption."
That's a form of corruption where an official might award a public contract to a company at an inflated rate. That official might then have some of the excess profit from the deal paid back to them as an incentive to arrange similar deals. The term refers specifically to the "intentional misdirection of official funds."
The Telegraph's report suggests that graft corruption was particularly prevalent at private luxury clubs with high membership fees (sometimes as high as 200,000 yuan or 30,000 US dollars a year) and a small number of members. This created a protected environment for the corruption to take place.
It is also claimed that bribery took place at some of the clubs.
Other initiatives in President Xi's anti-corruption policy have seen a control of lavish gift giving and banquets. The successful drive has seen hundreds officials detained for flouting rules.
