It was a routine chit chat with a taxi driver in Beijing last week, making small talk, telling him that I was going to take the bullet train to Shanghai just for the experience. The train has become one of the symbols of China’s economic prowess, running every 15 minutes and at top speed of 300 kilometers per hour it can cut the 1318 kilometer trip to 5 hours. Air travel cannot even come close to compete.

But the driver had other news in mind. The Deputy Chief Engineer of the Railway Ministry, responsible for the construction of the bullet trains intended to link all of China, had just been arrested for purportedly embezzling 2.7 billion “US dollars not Yuan”, according to the taxi driver. The corrupt official was nabbed before he escaped to a foreign country but the money is already gone.

The same week, China Weekly a widely distributed English language magazine ran a lurid cover story “Most Wanted: Public Servants Turned Public Enemies.”

Just running the story in a country so sensitive of its public image and where all press is controlled by the government is newsworthy in itself. It also shows the extent of corruption that the taxi driver-reporter talked about.

It is clear that China’s breakneck speed in economic development, the trillions of dollars in foreign surplus and a 10 percent annual growth for over 20 years has an unsavory side effect: endemic and massive corruption.

The article’s news hook was the July 23 “repatriation” by Canada of Lai Changxing after 12 years as a fugitive and whose defense with Canadian authorities was that if returned to China he would be tortured and executed. Lai, as Chairman of Yuanhua International Corporation is accused of absconding with $7.7 billion. Lai’s corruption while running a company trading in cigarettes and cars might have involved another 600 corrupt businessmen and officials. According to China Weekly in 1999 Lai’s tax evasion plus the “valuation of his company amounted to 10 percent of the gross national revenue.”

Lai’s even more potent line of defense has been his contention that if repatriated a lot of people, dirty in looting, will “squirm.” The extent of his tattle tailing remains to be seen but it must be massive. Just a little arithmetic: $7.7 billion is a lot of money. At $10,000 per day that people are allowed to transfer without alerting money regulating authorities in both outgoing and incoming countries it would take 2000 years to transfer that kind of cash. Large government collusion would be necessary to transfer the money.

In a July of this year report the Chinese National Academy of Sciences claimed that 4000 corrupt officials fled in foreign countries along with $50 billion in public funds. The report was retracted immediately and the journalist that broke the story issued a public apology but another report also issued last July by the People’s Bank of China heralded an even worse situation. Since 1992, 16,000 to 18,000 corrupt officials became fugitives in foreign countries taking with them $125 billion. Peking University issued a similar study, claiming 10,000 fugitives who took with them $100 billion.

China Weekly citing information from “Agencies” put together a province-by-province breakdown of totals from 1992 to 2007. In Guangdong Province alone $155 billion was stolen. This compares with the 2006 Provincial GDP of $335 billion. More than 1640 officials fled the country from just that province in direct connection with the theft of public funds.

The favorite destinations are the United States, Canada and Western Europe. Ironically, the corrupt officials who made a mint by blatant stealing, using their position in the Chinese government or by courting government officials, suddenly become its critics, presenting themselves as human rights advocates (theirs) and invoking their belief their extradition would surely result in highly flawed due process, torture and execution. The Canadian and European governments would not extradite people who may face the death penalty in their native countries no matter what the crime they are accused of.

Corruption in China has become impossible to hide. In a culture where “commissions” had been normal and expected the situation got way out of hand. Communications and internet, away from government control under which the official press operates, are loaded with “news” of innuendo and rumors. As expected some are as wild as can be. This is an additional reason why the government is allowing the official press to write about corruption.

Even more important is that the Chinese government is removing the death penalty from financial crimes which would go a long way to persuade foreign governments to extradite Chinese corruption fugitives. It may be not a moment too soon. The Chinese people are livid and unless the government does something concrete and visible the anger may be hard to contain.