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Got What It Takes to Be a Corrupt Chinese Official? Take This Quiz to Find Out

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Yang Dacai (2nd L standing), a Chinese official branded 'Brother Watch' because of his expensive taste in timepieces, stands in the courtroom in the Intermediate people's court of Xian, northwest China's Shaanxi province on Sept. 5, 2013STR / AFP / Getty Images
By Emily Rauhala

Want to understand corruption? Get inside the minds of the corrupt. That seems to be the thinking behind a quiz developed by a Chinese scholar and published online by state press.

Professor Di Xiaohua, head of the Crime Prevention and Control Research Institute at Nanjing University, interviewed 47 Chinese prisoners and analyzed the results of 200 surveys to get a better sense of what leads officials astray, reports China Daily. Then, working with local officials, Di developed a 34-part questionnaire designed to test corruptibility. Here are some head-scratchers, translated from the Chinese:

Do you agree that if you do not become corrupt you will get marginalized?

Are you eager for an affair or extra-marital sex?

Are you confident that the Party and the government will curb corruption effectively?

And on to the multiple choice:

Do you frequently face temptations such as:
a. Flattery, seldom being criticized
b. Dinner invitations and free gifts
c. Various kinds of sexual services

Do you agree with the following statements?
a. You should only accept money or gifts of less than 5,000 yuan ($825)
b. Every time I’m given a gift I feel very uneasy
c. I rarely give a second thought to the value of gifts or money that are given to me

The timing couldn’t be better. President Xi Jinping wants to make tackling graft one of his hallmarks, vowing to target high-ranking “tigers” and lowly “flies” in a sweeping anti-corruption drive. It’s a campaign that’s seen many a cadre land in prison and quite a few nightclubs closed. In Jiangsu province alone, 10,357 corrupt officials were punished in 2013, China Dailynotes.

The survey has already been used to test 2,000 civil servants, but their results were not publicly disclosed. The goal, it seems, is not “gotcha,” but personal growth. “The answers will only be known by those who set the test, but the test can act as a kind of self-education,” a local official told the press. That’s good news for nervous quiz-takers — although any venal official who couldn’t ace this test probably wasn’t on the road to ill-gotten riches.

—With reporting and translation from Gu Yongqiang

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Write to Emily Rauhala at emily_rauhala@timeasia.com