Shocking discovery about the qualifications of corrupt Chinese officials

This magazine said that through studying the educational records of 142 provincial and ministerial level officials who have fallen from power since the 18th Congress (2012) until now, it discovered the "4 many" problem in the educational background of corrupt officials: many were fast-tracked, many were from fields outside their responsibility, many were from prestigious schools, and many were from questionable schools.

Many high-ranking officials are given additional titles such as Institute Director, Professor, Doctor, Senior Engineer, and even PhD student supervisors. Data published through the investigation shows that, among the 48 officials with PhD degrees, 26 are outside their field of responsibility, accounting for 54%. Among the 66 masters, 33 are outside their field of responsibility, accounting for 50%.

Some cases of corrupt officials with "problematic" academic qualifications were named in the article as follows: Vu Truong Thuan, Director of Public Security, Vice Chairman of the People's Political Consultative Conference of Tianjin City, worked for more than 40 years, never left the industry, but has a Master's degree in Industrial Management, a Doctorate in Industry and Senior Engineer, in which the Doctorate is a highly specialized type in Mechanical Theory and Design (!).

Yunnan Vice Governor Shen Peiping, who majored in languages, entered the party school to study correspondence courses in the part-time graduate program. In 2007, he successfully defended his doctoral thesis in physical geography at a prestigious university in Beijing. Five months later, he was appointed as a part-time professor at the university's Institute of Natural Resources.

Many corrupt officials who fell from power had very poor basic education, or even no basic education, but they obtained the desired degrees in a very short time. A typical example is Zhou Benshun, member of the Central Committee, Secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, who has not only one but two doctorates in Industrial and Commercial Management and Law; it took him only one year to obtain his Doctorate in Law from Wuhan University.

Li Xiangqi, Vice Governor of Shandong Province, graduated in January 2005 with a Bachelor's degree in Industrial and Commercial Management from a prestigious university through a distance learning program. Five months later, he earned a Master's degree in Industrial and Commercial Management from the same university's Department of International Trade.

Fallen corrupt officials also often have many degrees that demonstrate their outstanding ability to both study and work. According to records, during his time as Mayor of Dongchuan, Phung Tan Tru, former Vice Governor of Shaanxi, attended two classes at the same time: a part-time graduate student at the Party School and a Master's degree in Industrial and Commercial Management at Xi'an University; the study period overlapped by two years.

Another corrupt official, Gui Jianye, Deputy Secretary and Mayor of Nanjing, who did not finish high school, also obtained a PhD in the "study while working" style: at the age of 17, he entered the Suzhou Party School to take supplementary courses for young cadres and obtained a high school diploma. From 1983 to 1985, when he was the Deputy of the Propaganda Department of the Suzhou City Party Committee, Nghiep enrolled in a specialized course in administrative management at Suzhou University; from 1996 to 1998, he studied a specialized course in administrative management at Suzhou University, and at the same time, he took an economic management course at the University of Maryland, USA, opened in Suzhou while he was Deputy Secretary and Deputy Mayor of Kunshan; from 1999 to 2002, he studied and took the exam to obtain a Master of Laws degree while he was Deputy Secretary and Mayor of Yangzhou; then he obtained a Doctor of Laws degree to continue his promotion...

Wang Suyi, former head of the Inner Mongolia Regional Party Committee, during his tenure in Huvhot and Basanzhar cities, studied two classes at the same time, majoring in law and industrial and commercial management, with the study time overlapping for more than a year.

Before the 18th Congress, officials competed to use public money and by all means to obtain degrees and diplomas; but after the 18th Congress, because it was banned, they turned to using money to hire students.

Mr. Hung Binh Ky, Deputy Director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said: "Many officials hold the power to distribute resources, and some schools are willing to use educational resources in exchange, happily welcoming officials to get Master's and Doctorate degrees..."

Officials need degrees to facilitate their promotion, schools with officials as students find it easy to solve any problem. Companies use this "platform" to make friends with officials. From there, a "conspiracy of education" interest group is formed.

The Dong Phuong newspaper commented: in reality, this situation is very common in the officialdom. Many ministers, provincial governors, and secretaries have high academic qualifications, with a bunch of PhDs and Master's degrees, some of them are even PhD supervisors. These people, not to mention writing academic theses, even have their secretaries go to lectures on their behalf; many people have proper titles and degrees, power and academics, but have no substance whatsoever.

The reason for this situation is that in the use of officials, the word "specialized" is considered important, but when considering this issue, people often look at who has high education, so officials compete to find degrees, and those without a PhD are absolutely not accepted.

When the HR agency looked at them, they all had full degrees and beautiful profiles, but in reality they were all just "grass bags".