On August 9, Cheng Weigao, former governor and Party chief of Hebei Province, was expelled from the ruling Communist Party of China for his alleged involvement in corruption scandals. The press release issued by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced the decision. It also named Guo Guangyun who reported the corruption scandals and therefore suffered from revenge.
Cheng served two terms on the Party's elite Central Committee from 1987 to 1997, was the governor and top Party official of northern Hebei Province from 1991-1998, and was the head of the province's legislature from 1998 until earlier this year.
Justice eight years in waiting
Guo Guangyun is 61 years old and a retiree from the Construction Committee of Shijiazhuang City, capital of Hebei Province. From 4 pm on August 9, the telephone in Guo’s home rang continuously with congratulations: Congrats, Lao Guo, they said, you won eventually.
Guo was born in Dabaichi village, Lixian County of Hebei’s Baoding City. The villagers shot off fireworks to show their congratulations for Guo. “We drink a toast to you!” the village head told Guo on the phone.
Hearing this, Guo cried. He had waited eight years for justice.
The Party authority has considered the revenge taking by Cheng on Guo was one of five serious violations and accusations made against Cheng.
Before this, Guo was accused of “slander on a provincial leader”, and the allegation remained with Guo for eight years until now.
Guo visits Shijiazhuang Herbalist Hospital frequently for his cardiopathy, high blood pressure and diabetes. “I have quite a few things wrong with me and I am in a lot of pain. I got Diabetes while I was in the detention house,” said Guo.
“His life is full of frustrations,” Guo’s wife said.
Guo Guangyun was born in 1942 of a poor family and enrolled in the Construction Engineering Department of Shanghai Tongji University in 1961, graduating in 1966. Only several months after graduation, Guo was transferred to do manual work in the countryside as he was affirmed as a man opposed to the “the Great Cultural Revolution”. He spent four years and eleven months in the countryside.
Thanks to his poor origins, and owing to the policy during the Cultural Revolution to promote the poor rather than the rich to positions with good career prospects, he was dispatched to the Construction Bureau at Jingzhou, Hubei Province and thereafter moved to the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee in 1973. With excellent ability, he was promoted as section chief of the project department and head of the cost ration station. In 1988, Guo began to report the corrupt behavior of Li Shanlin, director of the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee. In 1995 he wrote his first anonymous letter to report Cheng’s problem.
“I am not a man seeking connection with person in power.”
In 1990, Cheng Weigao was appointed as governor of Hebei government from Henan. Nanjing No.2 Construction Company decorated Cheng’s house for two months. Cheng was once the top Party official of Nanjing City from 1984-1987.
Guo worked as section chief of the project department of the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee at that time. The manager of Nanjing No. 2 Construction Company came to visit Guo and found that they were schoolfellows from Shanghai Tongji University. Based on that, the manager suggested introducing Guo to Cheng. If things went his way, he said, Guo might face great changes in his official career.
However, Guo had not consented to meet with Cheng. Thereafter, his old school friend and manager of the company turned to Li Shanlin, director of the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee. Li introduced himself to Cheng.
At that time, all construction companies had to pay fees for subsidiary infrastructure, like schools and roads. Only the national scientific and research institutions were exempt from such fees. Guo said that Li Shanlin approved many illegal exemptions which caused a huge deficit of tens of millions of yuan. And of course Li benefited from it.
“Why was Li so aggressive?” Because he felt safe with Cheng’s supporting him from behind. Cheng once praised Li Shanlin in public, saying he was open-minded.
Guo reported Li Shanlin’s corruption scandal in various ways, but nobody really thought much of it at that time.
Campaigning without help
Thereafter, Li was continuously promoted instead of being investigated, which made Guo recognize that the problem was more complicated.
In 1994, Guo wrote a letter to Cheng Weigao, reporting Li Shanlin’s wrong doings and asking why Li had been promoted. At that time, he thought it was Li who cheated Cheng. He tried to persuade Cheng not to trust or promote Li. But this obviously didn’t work.
By 1995, the corruption phenomenon in Shijiazhuang’s construction market was more and more serious. Najing No.2 Construction Company obtained a large number of projects under the support of Li Shanlin.
Informing letter enraged Chen Weigao
On August 17, 1995, after careful investigation, Guo Guangyun prepared to write a letter directly to the central government. The letter concluded that Cheng and Li were chief criminals in Shijiazhuang’s disordered construction market and provided a list of construction projects and relevant information that involved corruption.
Being an official at grass roots level, it was impossible for Guo to have much insider knowledge about Cheng. In his letter, Guo didn’t mention any of Cheng’s economic problems. After he had the letter printed, Guo sent five letters anonymously to the central government and sent one to the provincial procuratorate, with one letter falling eventually into Cheng’s hands.
Cheng was very annoyed since he now knew someone was trying to bring an action against him. Cheng was known to have said that he would punish the person who was against him. Guo then became the key object of suspicion.
“The Anti-Cheng Weigao gang”
In September 1995, Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC ordered Guo to talk with them and investigate his anonymous letter. Guo denied that he was the author of the letter. Suddenly, two months later, unimaginable things began happening to him even though Guo had not been required to confess.
“It was at 5 pm on November 21, 1995.” He remembers clearly the exact time he was forcibly detained.
“On that day, the secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee asked me to go and see them, saying they would give me a rise in my wages as I was an senior engineer. As I stepped into the building, several strangers grabbed me and brought me downstairs and pushed me into their vehicle. Then I was put into a lockup.”
Guo’s family received notice the following day that he had been detained.
The staff that handled his case and all the guards said Guo was a political criminal. His treatment was different, and he was locked up in room 256 with six men with light misdemeanors keeping an eye on him, while other prisoners were locked in rooms with as many as 30 people. Others could listen to the TV, but Guo was kept away from all information and not even a piece of paper was found in his room.
He was questioned everyday and the most frequently asked questions were: did he write this anonymous letter? and Does the “Anti-Cheng Weigao Group” have anyone behind them or have accomplices?
“I was not in despair but very optimistic at first, for I was innocent. I wrote the letter very carefully without any rumor or slander and felt I could get over all this soon.”
One month later, when Guo could no longer stand the relentless daily questioning and had a fever and felt he was dying, he admitted he wrote the letter. Remember that, Guo had sniffled and then was unable to speak further.
At that time, Guo was not the only one being investigated for reporting Cheng’s corruption, or disagreeing with Cheng’s activities. Guo’s family had been frequently investigated and many of their friends no longer spoke to them.
Before the Spring Festival of 1996, after more than two months of detention, Guo Guangyun was sentenced to two years of “reeducation-through-labor” for “sending an anonymous letter and slandering a provincial leader.” But the judgment never reached his family.
“Later, I discovered that Cheng had hinted to the local court to sentence me for several years in prison. But the court thought my case was not a crime and so resisted and gave me labor detention instead.”
After being transmitted to the labor farm, he was then told that he had been expelled from the Party.
Once there, Guo was asked to copy the news on the blackboard and grow flowers as he was old and no longer so fit. After three months on the labor farm, Guo was allowed to see his spouse and daughter-in-law for the first time. They found he hadn’t showered or washed in three months. Guo’s socks were stuck to his feet. In the afternoon of that day, his wife brought some warm water secretly into the farm and washed his feet with tears in her eyes. The socks were torn to pieces and he had many blisters.
The ups and downs of redress
During the time Guo was detained, his family and many upright people called for justness.
Although Guo’s wife felt distressed with his ordeal, she never complained on his behalf. She thought it best as he was a just and upright man.
After nine months being locked up in the labor farm, Guo Guangyun received medical treatment while on bail. But Guo continually reported Cheng’s misdoings using his real name while with his wife. “It cost us thousands of yuan sending letters by EMS,” Gou said.
Guo also visited Beijing many times to appeal to the leadership for intervention. “My appeal might at least have held back their greed,” he said.
Guo’s suffering aroused some leaders and retired cadres’ attention and intervention. In 1999, an inspection team from the central government came to Hebei Province. “Liu Shanxiang, previous leader of Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection mentioned Guo’s case at a discussion and thought it was related to Cheng Weigao directly, which attracted our attention. But Cheng heard about this soon after; then he told our team the case was not included in this inspection tour,” Yin Fatang, head of the team said in memory. Cheng’s highhanded style gave the team members a bad impression. “Our members knew little about Cheng before, but felt he was related to the problematic conditions in Hebei. During the tour, we didn’t find severe problems on Cheng, but the revenge on Guo Guangyun was gradually later discovered,” Yin said.
Yin also told the reason why Guo’s injustice hadn’t been redressed was mainly because of Cheng’s resistance to the instructions made by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC.
In April 2000, the staff from the CCDI spent five and a half days listening to Guo’s report.
Under the interference of and appeals by some retired cadres and the higher Party organization, in 2000 the local Party organization announced the decision that Guo’s reeducation-through-labor was removed and his Party membership was reconverted. However, instead, a warning punishment within the Party was still given to him. Guo did not accept this as final and continued his appeal.
Afterwards, a series of serious corruption cases were revealed in Hebei. Cheng’s two former secretaries were each given the following penalties: Wu Qingwu (a number of years probation) and Li Zhen (sentenced to death), while deputy head of the Hebei Provincial Construction Committee, Li Shanlin, was given14 years in prison and former mayor of Shijiazhuang City, Zhang Erchen 10 years.
Guo felt his injustice would soon be redressed.
“I am not a hero.”
On February 13, 2003 Guo met two officials from the Shijiazhuang Party Committee. On behalf of the Party organization, they apologized to Guo for their mishandling of his case.
Half a year later, on August 9 this year, the CCDI announced that Cheng violated Party discipline, and Guo’s name was especially mentioned. “Cheng took revenge on the official Guo Guangyun who tried to faithfully report his corrupt behavior,” was one of the five claims reported against Cheng.
Yin Fatang praised Guo highly. “It’s not usual for one who dares report top grade officials like Cheng and it needs great courage. Especially for his perseverance after suffering such revenge, Guo is the very quintessence of anti-corruption,” Yin said.
“Someone called me an anti-corruption hero, but I am not. I have just fulfilled my duty in fighting against corruption. I cost me too much within the past eight years. I had to make a choice between associating with those corrupt officials or fighting against them. I had no choice!” Guo said.
(Nanfang Weekend, translated by Wang Zhiyong for China.org.cn, September 8, 2003)
