Monitor | To fight sleaze, Xi needs to call the Untouchables
It won't be politically painless but China's new leaders can stop the official rot, just as other countries have done on the road to development
The pledge by China's new leaders to stamp down on official corruption has been greeted at home and abroad with weary cynicism.
People have heard similar pledges too often before. Too often the subsequent campaigns have been little more than window dressing, or a pretext to eliminate political rivals. A handful of corrupt officials have been imprisoned, or even shot, but official corruption has continued unabated.
Many believe this time will be no different. The sceptics point to international media articles detailing the vast fortunes amassed by the families of top-tier officials and to the recent crackdown on China's domestic press as evidence that the country's new leaders have no interest in a real clean-up.
Getting rid of a few bent officials will change nothing, the sceptics lament. Others will simply step into their shoes. It is the system itself that is corrupt.
Some even look at history and suggest there is something in China's culture that encourages corruption - which always involves a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich, and from the weak to the strong. Change, they conclude, is all but impossible.
Although such pessimism is understandable, it is unjustified. Corruption may be rampant in China, but there is nothing exceptional about that - or incurable.