For those of you following Wuhan news, Wuda (short for Wuhan University), my alma mater (well, alma mater might be a strong term… the place I’m taking Chinese classes) has recently been making headlines. The university’s vice president and vice party secretary were arrested a few weeks back for corruption, and this week the Minister of Education, Zhou Ji, whose career began in Wuhan (and probably has guanxi with the Wuda people) was also removed from his post. From China Daily:
The removal also comes just weeks after two senior administrators at Wuhan University in Hubei province were arrested over allegations of bribery.
Zhou has never been linked publicly with the matter, but he has spent the majority of his career in Wuhan’s education sector and served as city mayor for two years before being promoted to vice-minister of education in 2002.
The alleged corruption at the university sums up the challenges facing China’s college system, say analysts.
Beijing instigated a rapid expansion of higher education in the 1990s, injecting money to create competitive world-class schools and provide more spaces for students.
In 2000, Wuhan University merged with three other schools and launched a 980-million-yuan ($140 million) program to construct new teaching buildings, dormitories and housing for professors. The arrested administrators are accused of taking bribes related to the project.
As for why the Wuda administrators were really arrested, it’s hard to know what the full story is. One of my students said the arrest had nothing to do with the cases of corruption they were being charged for, but was instead the latest move in a political struggle. Word on the street is that there’s a political feud between the mayor of Wuhan and the president of Wuda over the building of a new overpass that was supposed to pass by Wuda’s main gate. The president of the university used his authority (he is apparently politically on par with the mayor of the city) to stop the project and protect the campus, and that has angered people in the city government (in particular, I would assume, the people who are getting kickbacks from the building project). According to my student, construction projects involve a lot of money, which means there’s a lot at stake, and the two university administrators who were arrested were the latest pawns in the struggle.
The road construction has been stalled for my entire time in Wuhan, but started up a few weeks ago, so it does seem like there was some kind of break-through in the stalemate. Or maybe the rumors are too cynical and this is just the anti-corruption squad doing its job.