In a recent major development in Chinese justice, six officials of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party were charged with the premeditated murder of their suspect, Yu Qiyi, the chief engineer of Wenzhou Industry Investment Group. Yu was captured by the commission in early March; on April 9, his wife was informed that he had died in an accident, and a body bearing signs of torture was later handed over.

Yu Qiyi was arrested without any court order, based solely on the Party charter, which states that a CCP member must report his activities “at a designated time and place” when called upon. He died because commission officials dunked his head in a bucket of ice water to extract a confession of corruption. Five Party investigators and a prosecutor who was present at the interrogation overdid it a bit, and Yu choked to death.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is a party investigative body, unwritten in any law, that has the power to detain and interrogate CPC members at its own discretion, which in reality includes virtually all public sector executives and many businessmen. Investigations sometimes go to court, and sometimes end in acquittal or punishment only along party lines. In such cases, defendants may be required to keep details of the “investigation” confidential. Defendants are usually held in party-owned safe houses or villas for several months.

China's state law enforcement system is also not a model of human rights. For example, the police have the power to send people to labor camps for up to four years without a court order. The Chinese police are corrupt, and there are known cases of torture. However, thanks to the government's efforts and growing public attention, the law enforcement system is gradually modernizing. Measures are being taken to strengthen oversight and prevent torture, and the most outrageous sentences are being reviewed under public pressure.

The Party's justice is terrifying precisely because of its secrecy and lack of restrictions on methods. Former celestials, such as Chongqing Party leader Bo Xilai, are subjected to psychological pressure, such as threats to imprison his son. Bo Xilai himself, at the height of his fame, cemented his reputation as an anti-corruption fighter in Chongqing by sanctioning the widespread use of torture against corrupt officials and organized crime figures. For simpler people, a meeting with the discipline inspection commission can end badly.

The case against Yu Qiyi's killers is the first case against the commission's employees since 2000 (when party investigators beat a 69-year-old pensioner to death as part of their investigation). The party organ's right to detain people without a court order is not in question.

Of course, a system built in this way is not so much an instrument for fighting corruption as it is an instrument for internal political struggle. This has been confirmed more than once during personnel purges, which usually follow a change of generations of leadership in the PRC. It is also time to understand that it is rather pointless to explain the superiority of Asian "development dictatorships" in growth rates compared to Russia by the quality of institutions, the level of corruption or methods of state regulation.

No matter how bad Russian institutions are, no matter how monstrous Russian law enforcement may seem, they are in a different historical era compared to the “21st century superpower.” As for the investment climate, during the first decades of reforms, one investment climate existed in China for Chinese entrepreneurs and another for foreign investors. Now the conditions are converging. Recently, for example, confessions of arrested executives of Chinese and foreign companies to crimes have become quite widespread on Chinese state television.

China is not unique - Taiwan and South Korea were also ruled by harsh and corrupt authoritarian regimes in the past. The development of democratic institutions and the reduction of corruption in them occurred already in the 1990s and 2000s at a very high level of economic development and a corresponding deep transformation of society. The phenomenal growth rates were explained not by "institutions" or "the fight against corruption", but by a constant influx of cheap and high-quality labor from the countryside, reasonable macroeconomic policies and political stability.

This development experience has nothing to do with modern Russia - in our country the possibilities of the model of rapid growth on the wave of industrialization and urbanization were exhausted half a century ago. As a result of development in the 20th century, Russia has become a country with the demographics and level of education of a first world country and the economic structure and institutions of a third world country, albeit a relatively prosperous one. Instead of millions of yesterday's peasants ready to work in factories for 12 hours a day, we have oil and gas - resources that are much less valuable and reliable. It is obvious that Russia will have to work out a completely original path of development for the country, since endless references to foreign experience and explanations of all troubles by corruption and the low quality of institutions are unproductive.

Second World: What Modern China Teaches Us