Best Chinese Government Whistleblowers: Mistresses

Best Chinese Government Whistleblowers: Mistresses

What do Chinese government whistleblowers have in common with Marilyn Monroe, Gennifer Flowers, Camilla Parker Bowles, Lucy Mercer, and Monica Lewinsky?

That’s correct; they are all mistresses. Many mistresses of government officials in China are causing an upheaval with revelations destroying the officials’ careers. China’s top newspaper, the People’s Daily, which is the ruling Communist Party’s official newspaper, denounced the practice. According to Reuters, the paper wrote:

Even though at times, for many reasons, mistresses are led by fallings out with corrupt officials to denounce them, at the root of the issue, both their motives are the same – to satisfy each other’s greed. Some directly solicit bribes or seek huge illegal profits. To pin anti-corruption hopes on them is to go in for evil attacking evil. It is not the right path for the will of the people.

President Xi Jinping has focused on corruption while many officials have been housing  their mistresses in lavish apartments. In one case, the deputy chief of China’s top planning agency, Liu Tienan, was fired after his mistress revealed he defrauded banks of  $200 million. Another example was a viral video showing a district party chief, Lei Zhengfu, having sex with his mistress, 24-year-old Zhao Hongxia.

Zhao, who was charged with extortion this month because she acted as part of a group that blackmailed officials by secretly filming sex sessions, has nonetheless been hailed as a heroine by some for revealing corruption.

Some Weibo users hailed the mistresses; one user said, “In this very special country, mistresses make a bigger contribution to anti-corruption than so-called public security authorities.” Another wrote, “Without them, whom can we depend on?” A third criticized the People’s Daily for its opinion, simply posting, “Quit griping.” 

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