Mistresses – China’s New Corruption Warriors · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A key consensus reached during the 18th National Congress of Chinese Communist Party in early November 2012, was the battle against corruption. In the past week, two corruption cases have been exposed, not by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CCP), but by the mistresses or second wives of the corrupted officials.
Two recent sex scandals
The first case involves a district official in Chongqing Municipality, Lei Zhengfu, who was sacked on November 23, after he was confirmed as the man featuring in a sex video taken by his mistress and exposed online by Beijing micro-blogger Ji Xuguang (紀許光).
Wang uploaded her press card in Weibo to prove that she is determined to expose the corruption case with her real identity.
The second case involves a CCP member and civil servant in Heilongjiang, Sun Dejiang (孫德江), exposed by the reporter Wang Dechun (王德春), the victim of Sun's sexual coercion. The case is now under investigation.
The fact that a large number of corruption cases in China have been exposed through sex videotapes by mistresses or second wives and netizens’ collective human flesh search efforts, have prompted a lot of discussion online.
Some praise the mistresses for standing up against corruption, whilst some criticize the CCP and the government for not taking the leading role to fight corruption.
Co-relation between mistress and corruption
Blogger and news commentator, Feng Qingyang, wrote a recent post [zh] about the background of the phenomena:
不得不承认，这些年来二奶成了腐败分子的“克星”。到目前为止，由二奶牵出的贪官可以说是无计其数或者说是99%的贪官都有二奶。数据表明，在广州、深圳、珠海公布的官员贪污受贿案件中，包养“二奶”的甚至几乎达到了100％。这让人们看出，在中国官场，已经活跃着一支浩浩荡荡的队伍，情妇，已经形成了一支反腐“义勇军”。
We have to admit that in all these years, the second wives have become the deadly weapon against corrupt officials. So far numerous corruption cases have been exposed by second wives. Or we can say that 99% of the corrupt officials have second wives. Statistics show that among the corruption cases from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, 100% have second wives. So the army of mistress and second wives has a lot of potential in fighting against corruption in China.
二奶能反腐，关键在于腐败官员的罪恶行径，了解最深、摸得最透的莫过于情妇、二奶。一旦反目成仇，撕咬起来，一定是句句不空，口口致命，一句一个事实，一口一个铁证，想赖都赖不掉。这也充分印证了“堡垒往往是从内部攻破的”这一真理。
The reason why the second wives are powerful in anti-corruption is because they have witnessed and therefore understood their sin. Once their relationship with the officials ended badly, they are in control of very solid evidence of the officials’ corruption. The situation is like the [ancient Greek] city of Troy – an internal battle is best to attack a castle.
如今养情人包二奶已成为时尚和贪官最大的爱好。“一个情人没有是废物，两三个情人是人物，五六个情人是动物”。老百姓以生动简练的语言，这样形象地描述他们的生活状态：“早上围着轮子转（下乡），中午围着盘子转（接待），下午围着桌子转（麻将），晚上围着裙子转（跳舞）”。“吸烟基本靠送，喝酒基本靠贡，工资基本不动（奖金就够了），老婆基本不用（二奶专门伺候）”。“官场男人三大喜事：升官、发财、死老婆”。个中奥妙，人尽皆知。
Having mistresses and second wives has become a habit and fashion amongst corrupt officials. “Only losers do not have mistresses, key figures have 2-3 mistresses, animals have 5-6 mistresses.” Ordinary people have captured the lifestyle of corrupt officials in simple fashion saying: “In the morning busy with the wheels (going to the outskirt of the city for work), at noon time busy with the dishes (reception), in the afternoon busy with the table (playing mahjong], at night busy with skirts (dancing).” “Cigarette is gift, wine is tribute, salary unspent (bonus is enough for daily expenditure), wife is of no use (as they have second wife).” “Three happy moments among government officials: promotion, unexpected wealth, dead wife”. Everyone knows the implications of the jokes.
Quite a number of micro-bloggers echoed Feng's observation, for example Disappointed table lamp [zh] said:
失望的台灯：有的是自己老婆举报，有的是情人举报。二奶反腐，情人反腐，几乎成为了监督权力的另外一种格外有趣的，有力的模式。
Some are exposed by the second wife, some by the mistress. Anti-corruption through second wife and mistress have become a very powerful and interesting model in monitoring the authorities.
What about woman's dignity?
On the other hand, news commentator Wang Pang [zh] pointed out that the discussion about anti-corruption mistresses is a further victimization of the women who have been sexually abused by corrupted officials:
评论员王攀：把女人逼成二奶，把二奶逼成尖兵。做官员的情妇，女人失去一次做人的尊严；二奶反腐，女人又失去一次做人的尊严。假如官员财产公开，官员不会找二奶，反腐也不用靠二奶，女人就不必两次失去做人的尊严。难道官员财产公开比牺牲人的尊严还重要吗？让人民过上有尊严的生活，不妨从官员财产公开做起。
The women were forced into second wives and now they are forced into the position of ground army. They have lost their dignity once by being a mistress, and now they lose it again. If all the government officials disclose their property and wealth, they won't be able to coerce women into being second wives and we don't need to depend on second wives to fight corruption. Women don't need to lose their dignity twice. What's more important of people's dignity? If we are to let people live in dignity, the government officials should disclose their property for public monitor.
Looking for big brother also complained [zh] about the missing CCP effort in leading the anti-corruption campaign:
有事找大哥V：继小偷反腐、日记反腐、二奶反腐、妓女反腐、微博反腐、建筑商反腐，就是不见有关部门反腐！
We have anti-corruption thief, diary, second wife, prostitute, Weibo, construction companies… but yet to see relevant sector [CCP] fighting against corruption.