MCLC: adultery has many names

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: adultery has many names
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere blog, NYT (6/9/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/in-communist-party-parlance-
adultery-has-many-names/

In Communist Party Parlance, Adultery Has Many Names
By ALAN WONG 

The Communist Party regularly employs a variety of muffled euphemisms for
sexual misdeeds: moral corruption, dissolute lifestyle and the like. But
in a rare display of lucidity, China’s top antigraft body actually used
the Chinese word for adultery — tongjian (通奸) — last week while announcing
the expulsion <http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/xwyw/201406/t20140605_23829.html> of
a party member.

The departure from normal party parlance drew a flurry of comments and
speculation online. “If adultery alone were enough to expel a party
member, I doubt how many of the 80 million members would be qualified to
stay,” said a post 
<http://t.163.com/yudaohuanxiu/status/-6107812117825681781> on NetEase
Weibo. “It gives the impression that” the expulsion “was not because of
his adultery, but who he committed it with.”

All of which prompted the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection to
issue a response:

In a statement <http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/xwyw/201406/t20140607_23898.html>
titled “Through a Buzzword: Looking at Party Rules Being Stricter Than
National Laws” posted on the commission’s website on Saturday, adultery is
defined as “voluntary sexual behavior between a married person and a
person of the opposite sex apart from his or her spouse, a behavior in
violation of socialist morality.”

The statement explains that while adultery is not prosecutable under
Chinese law, it is punishable under Communist Party rules, and that “party
members and cadres must not only obey national laws, but also — even more
so — party rules.”

On Thursday, the commission had said that Dai Chunning, a former senior
executive of a state-owned insurance company, was expelled from the party
for corruption and adultery. The state news agency Xinhua noted
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/lianzheng/2014-06/06/c_126584992.htm?anchor=1>
that the word “tongjian” had last been used two years previously, in the
expulsion of Mao Xiaoping (yes, an amalgam of Mao Zedong and Deng
Xiaoping), a deputy party secretary in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

It remains to be seen whether “adultery” will show up again soon or
whether party pronouncements will revert to more familiar phrases.
Regardless, in April, The Beijing News deciphered
<http://epaper.bjnews.com.cn/html/2014-04/16/content_506499.htm?div=4>
some of the euphemisms most often used to describe the sexual
indiscretions of targets of corruption investigations. They included:

Moral corruption, or “daode baihuai” (道德败坏): Means involved in
prolonged, 
improper relationships with multiple women, relationships with prostitutes
or adultery. Examples: Liu Zhijun, former railways minister; Guo
Yongxiang, former aide to Zhou Yongkang, the fallen security czar.

Dissolute lifestyle, or “shenghuo fuhua” (生活腐化): Means keeping
mistresses 
who are also involved in corruption or other unlawful activities. Example:
Liu Zhihua, former deputy mayor of Beijing.

The newspaper also noted prominent exceptions. Neither Bo Xilai, the
disgraced Communist Party aristocrat, nor Wang Lijun, his former police
chief in the city of Chongqing, were given any of the above labels, even
though both were said to have had improper sexual relationships with
multiple women.