By Wang Chi (王驰)
Issue 608, Feb 25, 2012
Commentary, page 16
Translated by Laura Lin
Original article: [Chinese]

Over the past three years, a growing number of high-ranking officials in China have committed suicide, according to data from the Legal Weekly (法治周末), a journal published by Legal Daily. In just the last two months alone, three officials -- Qi Xiaolin (祁晓林), Deputy Secretary of Guangzhou's Municipal Public Security Bureau, Zhang Wanxiong (张万雄), Vice-President of Liangzhou Court of Justice in Gansu Province, and Ke Jianguo (柯建国), director of the People's Procuratorate of the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Sichuan Province  - have all taken their own lives.

As demonstrated by the Legal Weekly report, most of the officials who commit suicide are between 45 and 56 years old, work on legal and political affairs, and almost all the officials were declared as "suffering from clinical depression" (患有抑郁症).

The reaction from the public? Ridicule.

"Were you not dead, your leader couldn't possibly sleep well!" was one of the comments on the Internet.

That an official announcement becomes a public laughing stock is familiar these days in China - another sign that the government's credibility is facing a severe challenge.
The Chinese government's lack of credibility is self-inflicted. More specifically, the fundamental cause for ridicule around these suicides is that official disclosure of information is often simplified and clumsy. Fearing media and public reaction, they use bland excuses such as a "result of depression" as the cause of death. This obviously is not enough.

In any modern and civilized society, governmental officials are a group of people with relatively little privacy. The public are entitled to know of their promotions and downgradings, the ups and downs of their careers, and even their health, and needless to say their life and death also.

Officials responsible for political and legal affairs are at the hub of our social structure. They play prominent public roles. Their fates are not to be perfunctory and the truth of their deaths should be publicized. This is in line with the tradition of respecting the deceased. It is by investigating the reasons why these officials chose to end their lives that we will pay homage to their deaths.

The Social Pyramid

Even if an official really did commit suicide because of depression, the government should react by allowing and encouraging a complete investigation by the press. This is the most effective and simplest way of demonstrating the government's credibility. One does not fall all of a sudden into a state of depression. The victim's colleagues and families would have noticed it. Through press investigation we will discover whether the deceased faced particular pressure and what sort of official environment he or she was working under. Such disclosure can help uncover the cause of death and allow for public recognition.

Only the press can go beyond individual cases and clarify whether or not the suicide rate of political and legal affairs officials is indeed higher than the average in China.

If this is indeed the case, it is obviously abnormal. The government should respond with a targeted analysis of the phenomenon, and take measures to address the psychological needs of this group of officials.

The public views officials who work on political and legal matters as belonging to the top of the social pyramid. That they can get depressed does not correspond to the public's understanding of their social status and living conditions. This is why the government owes the public a more convincing explanation.

Chinese authorities ought to stop shielding political and legal officials from public scrutiny. In China, those who work on public security matters have enjoyed the privilege of press immunity, which runs counter to the stated priority of the new Chinese leadership to combat corruption.

Not only should this group of officials not be protected from press exposure, they should be the primary focus of journalistic attention. The government should use this new wave of suicides to change its old ways.

Death should never be the source of someone's amusement, and the government's credibility is the most important of public goods. Instead in China a death is the butt of jokes and the credibility of its leaders is treated like a used rag.

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