Soul-searching in China

If one reads newspaper headlines in China these days, one easily gets the impression that, for all its glittering economic success, the world's most populous country is experiencing a collapse of morality. These are but a few examples.

In Guangdong province last month, a two-year-old girl was run over by two vans. More than a dozen people passed by but did nothing to help the toddler, who died within days. This event would most certainly have passed unnoticed had it not been captured on video and posted online.

The official Chinese press finally confirmed last month that, indeed, many restaurants in China had been using "gutter oil" — recycled cooking oil collected in trash bins — in food preparations. Such oil could cause cancer and other health problems. But the practice is said to be widespread.

In June this year, a 20-year-old woman reportedly employed by the Chinese Red Cross was shown, in a series of pictures posted online, flaunting Gucci handbags, wearing expensive designer clothes, and driving a Maserati, an Italian-made luxury car.

All of these incidents sparked public outrage over callousness, dishonesty and corruption. They also raised profound questions about the issue of morality in a society experiencing unprecedented and disorienting socio-economic changes.

While it is tempting for many Chinese to blame the insidious influence of raw capitalism and crass commercialism in corrupting China's public morality, much more powerful forces are at play here. Obviously, for-profit motives can drive individuals in any society to immoral, even criminal, conduct. And unrestrained pursuit of materialism can also distort a society's values and make its members self-centred and indifferent to the needs and well-being of others.

But the task of maintaining public morality in a rapidly modernising society is further complicated by political factors. In the Chinese case, it is impossible to talk about the decline of public morality without also discussing the role of its one-party political system.

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