DECEMBER 25, 2000 - JANUARY 1, 2001 VOL. 156 NO. 25/26

A Matter of Tryst
Chinese government officials have traded in their little red books for black ones by taking expensive concubines. A crackdown is under way
By HANNAH BEECH Nanjing

Xu Qiyao believed wholeheartedly in free love. There had been the cabaret crooner with the throaty purr, the demure hair-stylist, the winsome toll-booth collector. Xu also believed in free money. The 57-year-old lothario lavished nearly $2 million on his 20 mistresses, buying them Cartier watches and state-of-the-art stereos, and using his position as head of a provincial construction department to shelter them in a dozen love nests dotted throughout eastern China. But last month, Xu lost his harem when police arrested him on charges of "behavior unfit for a high-level official." Within days, the mistresses scattered and the once-compliant real-estate developers who curried favor with Xu had turned state's evidence. Now Xu will have to pay a price even steeper than the opulent baubles he had been showering upon his mistresses.

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Such extravagant philandering has become common among China's senior communist leaders. Dozens of corruption investigations over the past several years have not only led to the arrests of bigwigs like the former deputy governor of Jiangxi province and Beijing's former Communist Party chief but have also exposed their legions of mistresses. Late last month, China's former Justice Minister, Gao Changli, lost his job amid accusations that he emptied state coffers to sate his concubine. A recent study commissioned by the party's disciplinary commission found that 95% of officials convicted of economic crimes in southern China supported mistresses, whose bank accounts often concealed stolen government funds.

The mistress trade is embarrassing the party, which once counted equal treatment of women among its greatest accomplishments. And this month, the party is planning to strike back. The national parliament is mulling over toughening its marriage law, to combat what it considers moral decay in society—especially within official ranks. The process won't be easy. Attempts to revise the law, which was the first piece of legislation passed by the new People's Republic a half-century ago, are roiling the usually docile parliament. Among the most contentious amendments are proposals to toughen rules against concubinage and bigamy—and a clause, championed by the Guangdong Women's Federation, that would sentence cadres like construction official Xu to labor camp for illicit affairs. Some legislators argue that moral guidelines don't translate into practical laws, while others insist that mistresses must be outlawed to curb corruption. Unlike most meetings of the rubber-stamp body, the discussions about the marriage law could bring the parliament's cloistered conversations out into the open; the debate, set to take place in late December, could be the most heated since legislators clashed over the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest public-works project, which will turn the upper reaches of the Yangtze into a lake.

In pre-communist China, emperors kept dozens of powdered beauties and recorded each sexual liaison to track potential heirs. But the 1949 revolution forced monogamy upon the nation, closing down brothels and outlawing secondary wives for everyone—except officials like Chairman Mao, who, according to his private doctor, kept a stable of peasant girls. After economic reforms were introduced in the late 1970s, however, Hong Kong and Taiwan traders accumulated so many paramours that they created entire villages of mistresses. Soon, nouveaux-riches urban Chinese, many of whom had married peasant girls during the Cultural Revolution, had enough money for their own honeys. For the new generation of concubines, the biggest catch was a high-level bureaucrat. "Businessmen have money to spend," says An Dun, author of Absolute Privacy, a racy best seller based on interviews with mistresses. "But government officials have power, which is even more attractive."

Xu's power certainly worked with young women in Jiangsu province. Word spread across university campuses that plush jobs at his construction department could be had with a smear of lipstick and a miniskirt. The luckiest few donned their Cartier jewelry and waited in their subsidized apartments for Xu to drive up in his car with tinted windows. After he was promoted to oversee the province's building boom, Xu moved his favorites from his hometown of Yancheng to Nanjing, the provincial capital. One of his mistresses decorated her new digs with a leopard-print motif and filled her liquor cabinet with Xu's favorite Chivas Regal. "He said it would be easy to get me an apartment," this mistress says. "I thought, with him, I was basically working for the government, so it would be O.K. to take an apartment paid for by the state."

Many mistresses see their trysts less as love affairs than business propositions. Most of Xu's concubines rarely saw their sugar daddy as he made the long rounds of his 20-strong harem. Instead, says one, the women spent time at makeup counters and lingerie boutiques, or saved enough cash to open small businesses. Few had illusions that Xu would leave his wife for them, nor did most want him for anything more than an envelope of cash. "China's obsession with money has corrupted so many parts of society," says Beijing radio host Su Jingping, who focuses on family affairs during his weekly talk show. "It has corrupted businessmen, it has corrupted officials, it has corrupted marriages and it has even corrupted love."

The revision of the marriage law probably won't purify society—or even reform arrant members of China's legislature. This year, one vice chairman of that very body, Cheng Kejie, became the highest-ranking cadre executed for taking bribes given to him and his mistress. Nonetheless, some amendments are long overdue: domestic violence, which occurs in roughly 30% of Chinese families, will become a crime. Rules on alimony and joint-possession of property will protect women in the one-third of urban marriages that end in divorce. But rules punishing third parties in extramarital affairs, or even defining what constitutes bigamy, are trickier. Some even argue that China's parliament is chasing the wrong target. "If the government is worried about corruption, it should tackle that directly, not try to turn ethical guidelines into unenforceable laws," says Li Yinhe, a sociologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

But the All-China Women's Federation, which spearheaded efforts to amend the law, thinks this is the right approach. The Communist Party used to impose morality through neighborhood committees led by old women with red armbands who patrolled alleyways and informed officials about everything that happened. But with villages dispersing into cities, adding to an urban anonymity that hinders the party from prying into people's bedrooms, these finger-waggers are losing their reach. "Even if it's not 100% practical now," says Deng Li, deputy director of the federation, "it's important to take the first legal step down a long road of moral reform."

The first step for members of Xu's harem has been to run. Police have given chase, trying to untangle the web of sex and money that Xu weaved through eastern China. According to one inamorata, at least one mistress has fled the country with a forged passport, and another is planning her escape. "Maybe I can find a Taiwan businessman to take me out of China," the 22-year-old says wistfully. "And then, when I get there, I hope I can find someone who will marry me." Even for a former concubine, some dreams are incorruptible.

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