作者：彭硕
编辑：李晶 校对：王滨 翻译：戈冰
在台湾，最高领导人和其他高级公务员的财产状况并不是一个需要人猜测的话题，财产公示是一项明确写入法律的制度要求。根据台湾监察机关依法公开的最新财产申报资料，以现任总统赖清德及其配偶为例，其名下的资产结构十分清晰：在台南市有一块土地及一套住宅，购入总价约 3280 万新台币；银行存款合计约 1125 万新台币；有价证券全部为美国国债，总值约 1186 万新台币；与此同时，其名下仍有约 1246 万新台币的房屋贷款负债。每一项资产的取得时间、取得方式、金额以及负债情况，均在官方申报文件中逐项列明，并依法接受社会监督。
在这样的制度下，公众关注的重点并不在于官员有多少钱，而在于这些财产是否与其合法收入相匹配，是否存在来源不明的情况。财产公开的意义，并不是道德审判，而是让权力运行在可被核查、可被追问的轨道上。
与此形成鲜明对比的是，在中国大陆，官员的个人及家庭资产状况，从未进入任何制度化的公开程序。公众无法获知市长、省长、部长的财产情况，更不可能知道最高领导人习近平及其直系亲属名下究竟拥有多少资产，这些资产的构成如何，又分别来源于何种渠道，也不存在独立机构进行核查或向社会作出解释。这一问题的关键，并不在于数字大小本身，而在于是否允许监督存在。一个无法回答“最高领导人及其家族是否清廉”的制度，也就不可能真正回答“这个体制是否能够反腐”的问题。正是在这种权力高度不透明的背景下，中共的反腐逐渐演变成一种依赖内部运作的治理方式。
为了弥补常规监督的失效，官方不断强化“中央巡视组”这一自上而下的检查机制，以非常态的方式介入地方、部门和国有机构。但从制度角度看，巡视组的存在本身就暴露了一个根本问题：日常的制度性反腐和司法监督已经无法正常运转。巡视组并非独立司法机构，而是权力体系内部的监督安排，可以调查别人，却难以接受同等透明度的外部监督。当监督权力本身缺乏制衡，它就可能演变为新的权力节点，而非腐败的终结者。曾参与反腐和巡视工作的纪检高层人员中，也有多人因严重腐败被查处并判刑。例如，曾担任中央巡视组副组长的董宏，后来被查实长期、大规模受贿，涉案金额巨大，被判死缓。这类案件表明，在缺乏外部制衡的情况下，监督权本身也会异化为新的权力资源。
根据最高人民法院公布的司法统计，近几年全国因贪污贿赂罪被判刑的人数，发生了显著变化，其中最引人注目的是重刑比例的持续攀升。2017 年，被判处五年以上有期徒刑直至死刑的人数为 2124 人，到 2024 年，这一数字已上升至 6630 人，短短数年间增长超过三倍。重刑比例持续上升，那么问题显然不在个别官员贪腐，而在于一个能够长期容纳大规模权钱交易的制度环境。
这一趋势并不能简单解读为“反腐力度加大”的结果，更应被理解为腐败形态的整体升级。当制度真正有效时，腐败应当趋于边缘化、零散化，并逐步减少；而当重刑比例持续上升，恰恰说明腐败正在向更高权力层级、更关键资源领域集中，演变为一次性、系统性的权力变现。这种变化反映的不是个别道德失范，而是权力结构与监督机制失灵所导致的必然结果。
与此同时，中国以“公有制经济为主体”的制度安排，也在客观上放大了这种激励结构。土地、金融、能源、军工、芯片、生物医药等领域的大规模国家投资，使资源高度集中在政府手中，其具体分配权则掌握在少数官员手上，公有制实际上也就是“官有制”。当行政权、审批权和资源配置权高度叠加，却缺乏透明公开和问责机制时，权力自然会被转化为经济租金。腐败由此不再是制度的偏差，而是制度结构所不断激励的结果。
如果官员财产公开真的水土不服，那么这一制度本不应在华人社会长期存在。但现实恰恰相反。即便在中国主权之下的香港和澳门，最高行政长官至今仍需依法申报其财产与重大经济利益，并将相关申报内容向公众披露或接受社会查询。这一制度源自殖民时期引入的西方廉政与问责框架，在回归后被完整保留并持续运作，其核心目的在于防止权力与私人利益发生不透明的结合。这一事实本身已经说明，官员财产公开并不存在所谓的文化障碍。制度是否能够运行，取决的不是族群或传统，而是是否愿意接受权力受约束、受监督的现代政治原则。
因此，“越反越腐”并不是反腐不够严厉，而是共产党所主导的反腐制度本身存在根本缺陷。在这一体制下，反腐并非真正用于限制权力，而是服务于权力的重新分配与重组，同时也不是压缩寻租空间，而是迫使寻租方式不断升级和集中。共产党试图用更加集中的权力去对抗由权力高度集中所制造的腐败，用运动式清洗取代制度性约束，用党内纪律取代公共监督，这种逻辑本身就是自我矛盾的。
在一个最高权力及其家族资产不必公开、监督体系从属于党、司法缺乏独立性、规则高度不可预期的体制中，共产党的反腐注定无法终结腐败，只能不断推动腐败向更高层级、更大规模和更隐蔽的形态演化。真正有效的反腐，必须以权力透明为前提，以制度约束为核心，以独立监督为保障。只要共产党拒绝让权力接受制度化监督，无论反腐口号多么激烈，查处数字多么惊人，都只能停留在政治表演层面，而腐败则会在更深的制度结构中持续生长。
Examining the Institutional Hypocrisy of the CCP’s Anti-Corruption Campaign Through Taiwan and Hong Kong’s Public Disclosure of Officials’ Assets
Author: Peng Shuo
Editor: Li Jing Proofreader: Wang Bin Translator: Ge Bing
Abstract: By comparing the asset disclosure systems for officials in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, it becomes evident that the CCP’s anti-corruption efforts serve merely as a tool for internal power struggles. In an environment of systemic corruption, nearly all officials engage in graft, and asset disclosure remains a topic dictatorships dare not touch.
In Taiwan, the financial status of top leaders and senior civil servants is not a matter of speculation, as asset disclosure is a legally mandated requirement. According to the latest asset declarations publicly released by Taiwan’s oversight agency, the asset structure of incumbent President Lai Ching-te and his spouse is transparent: they own a plot of land and a residential property in Tainan City, purchased for approximately NT$32.8 million; bank deposits totaling approximately NT$11.25 million; all securities consist of U.S. Treasury bonds valued at about NT$11.86 million; concurrently, they carry approximately NT$12.46 million in outstanding mortgage debt. The acquisition date, method, amount, and debt status for each asset are itemized in official disclosure documents and subject to public oversight as mandated by law.
Under this system, public scrutiny focuses not on how much officials possess, but whether their assets align with lawful income and whether any sources remain unexplained. The purpose of asset disclosure is not moral judgment, but to ensure power operates within verifiable, accountable boundaries.
In stark contrast, on the Chinese mainland, the personal and family assets of officials have never been subject to any institutionalized disclosure process. The public cannot ascertain the wealth of mayors, governors, or ministers, let alone the assets held by the paramount leader Xi Jinping and his immediate family members—their composition, sources, or any independent oversight or public accountability. The crux of this issue lies not in the magnitude of the figures themselves, but in whether oversight is permitted. A system incapable of answering whether its supreme leader and his family are clean cannot genuinely address whether the system itself can combat corruption. It is precisely against this backdrop of extreme opacity in power that the CCP’s anti-corruption efforts have gradually evolved into a governance approach reliant on internal operations.
To compensate for the failure of conventional oversight, authorities have continuously strengthened the top-down inspection mechanism of the “Central Inspection Teams,” which intervene in local governments, departments, and state-owned institutions through extraordinary means. Yet from an institutional perspective, the very existence of these inspection teams exposes a fundamental problem: routine institutional anti-corruption efforts and judicial oversight have ceased to function normally. Inspection teams are not independent judicial bodies but supervisory arrangements within the power structure itself. They can investigate others but struggle to accept external oversight of equivalent transparency. When oversight power itself lacks checks and balances, it risks becoming a new power node rather than an anti-corruption enforcer. Several high-ranking officials involved in anti-corruption and inspection work have themselves been investigated and sentenced for severe corruption. For instance, Dong Hong, former deputy head of a Central Inspection Team, was later found guilty of long-term, large-scale bribery involving massive sums and sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. Such cases demonstrate that without external checks, supervisory authority itself can become a new form of power resource.
According to judicial statistics released by the Supreme People’s Court, the number of individuals sentenced for embezzlement and bribery offenses nationwide has undergone significant changes in recent years, most notably marked by a continuous rise in the proportion of severe sentences. In 2017, 2,124 individuals received sentences ranging from five years to death. By 2024, this figure had surged to 6,630—more than tripling in just a few years. The persistent rise in severe penalties suggests the problem lies not in isolated cases of official corruption, but in a systemic environment that has long accommodated large-scale power-for-money transactions.
This trend should not be simplistically interpreted as the result of “intensified anti-corruption efforts,” but rather understood as an overall escalation in the nature of corruption. When institutions are truly effective, corruption should become marginalized, fragmented, and gradually diminish. Conversely, a persistent rise in the proportion of severe punishments indicates that corruption is concentrating at higher levels of power and in more critical resource sectors, evolving into one-off, systemic monetization of power. This shift reflects not isolated moral lapses, but the inevitable outcome of dysfunctional power structures and oversight mechanisms.
Concurrently, China’s institutional arrangement centered on “public ownership as the mainstay” objectively amplifies this incentive structure. Massive state investments in sectors like land, finance, energy, defense, semiconductors, and biopharmaceuticals concentrate resources heavily within government hands, with specific allocation authority resting with a handful of officials—effectively transforming public ownership into “official ownership.” When administrative authority, approval powers, and resource allocation rights are highly overlapping yet lack transparency, openness, and accountability mechanisms, power naturally transforms into economic rent. Corruption thus ceases to be a deviation from the system and instead becomes an outcome continuously incentivized by the institutional structure.
If public disclosure of officials’ assets truly fails to take root, then this system should not have persisted long-term in Chinese-speaking societies. Yet the opposite holds true. Even in Hong Kong and Macau under Chinese sovereignty, the Chief Executives remain legally obligated to declare their assets and significant economic interests, with disclosures made public or accessible to societal scrutiny. This system, rooted in Western integrity and accountability frameworks introduced during colonial times, was fully preserved and continues to operate post-handover. Its core purpose is to prevent opaque collusion between power and private interests. This fact alone demonstrates that no so-called cultural barriers exist to public disclosure of officials’ assets. Whether such systems function depends not on ethnicity or tradition, but on embracing modern political principles that subject power to constraints and oversight.
Therefore, the paradox of “the more we fight corruption, the more it spreads” does not stem from insufficient rigor in anti-corruption efforts, but from fundamental flaws within the Communist Party-led anti-corruption system itself. Under this framework, anti-corruption measures do not genuinely serve to limit power; instead, they facilitate the redistribution and reorganization of power. Rather than reducing opportunities for rent-seeking, they compel rent-seeking practices to escalate and concentrate. The Communist Party attempts to combat corruption—a consequence of highly concentrated power—by wielding even more centralized authority. It replaces systemic constraints with campaign-style purges and substitutes public oversight with internal party discipline. This logic is inherently self-contradictory.
In a system where the supreme leader and his family’s assets remain undisclosed, oversight mechanisms are subordinate to the Party, the judiciary lacks independence, and rules are highly unpredictable, the Communist Party’s anti-corruption efforts are doomed to fail in ending corruption. Instead, they inevitably drive corruption to evolve into higher-level, larger-scale, and more covert forms. Truly effective anti-corruption efforts must be predicated on transparency of power, anchored in institutional constraints, and safeguarded by independent oversight. As long as the Communist Party refuses to subject power to institutionalized oversight, no matter how fiery the anti-corruption rhetoric or how staggering the numbers of cases investigated, such efforts will remain mere political theater. Corruption, meanwhile, will continue to thrive within the deeper institutional structures.
