Be a little compassionate to Chinese corrupted officials

Not long ago there came a news about the death of a Chinese official whom committed suicide in Xinjiang, China. This was the second one within these couple of weeks following the case of the chief in the China Liaison Office in Macao. it is widely believed they were under investigation on corruption. These two men were not junior officials so their death were made known in the news. However there should have been some more cases in the lower ranking ones without our knowledge. Being government officials in China is a rather risky business.

Apart from having to end their own lives, the danger of  being government officials was that there were even more Chinese government officials put behind bars due to the crimes of corruption or the related ones especially after Xi came into power. While the public welcome the crack down on the corrupted official gangs, this move became a nightmare of the officials within the opposition camp against Xi. They are under the risk of being eradicated from their current positions in the name of anti-corruption campaign. After all, the accusation is literally applicable to everyone in the government. Which official dares to say he/she is free from such practice through his/her way up in the ranking promotion? Higher the ranking greater the engagement would be, actively or passively.

When it is a norm that everyone must comply in order to survive in the muddy water. Who can escape anyway? This was fine when the power balance was in equilibrium state that everybody knows whom used to has some dirty business so nobody would uncover it for the sake of mutual safety. However storm began when one side gained the dominance in power and decided to eradicate the opposition. No more calm days since then.

People usually blame how evil the corrupted officials are when their cases were brought to the court hearing. Naturally people think these corrupted officials deserve their sentences. True is it that they have committed crime in the first place so they deserve penalty. However, considering that corruption is indeed institutional and a connate flaw due to the nature of mono-party ruling. As Lord Acton puts it "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Are theses officials really the ones to be blamed?

Just imagine when the officials were still in small potatoes, giving bribe is the only way to get promoted as that is the norm if they want to survive. When they get to the middle level ranking, naturally bribe will find its way to these officials when the junior follow these middle ranking's foot step while the latter also need money to buy their further way up. On the other hand, a probity officials is deemed to be a threat by those whom are not. Bad money drives out good. It developed into a vicious cycle that no one in the ruling party can be exempted.

What makes the cycle more severe is that due to the ferocious power struggle within the party, the officials do not know how much longer they can remain in office even if they are in power today. Perhaps next morning when they wake up they will find that people from the central investigation bureau is knocking their doors. These guys are really on edge and that prompts them to extort as much money as they can while they are still in power. It is because when the judgment day comes, they will not only lose their office but perhaps their lives as well. Their suicides are for the sake of  closing the file to avoid expanded investigation on their families and the other officials. They are indeed engaging in a dangerous game that could cost them their lives. In the human resources field there is a term "compensation" used to describe it as the total package that one can get for performing a job. So isn't fair enough for the Chinese officials be "a little" greedy on the compensation for the danger in their jobs?

Please show a little mercy to the Chinese corrupted officials. After all they will probably pay the price with their lives. Amen.