THE Chinese Communist Party has just promulgated a new moral code, mandatory for its members. He Guoqiang, the secretary of the Central Commission for the Inspection of the discipline, of the Party's Central committee , used the strongest tones in his official presentation at the end of February, and urged cadres and members to do their utmost to fight corruption at all levels: this is one of the Party's main objectives for the new year. From now on, the 70 million members - and their families - must scrupulously comply with the 52 rules of behavior set out in the code. For example, they must not accept money or other gifts in exchange for favors. Nor are they allowed to use their influence to provide advantages to relatives, friends or colleagues. Those holding public office must make a declaration of their assets. The code is exemplary, a compendium of rules that meet the highest ethical standards, recommended for any Western politician training .

At the same time, its promulgation sheds a more than dubious light on the party's current praxis, since the need to proclaim it implies the recognition that the conduct of its cadres leaves much to be desired. And this status has not come about because of the lack of clear rules of conduct. The code previously in force dated back to 1997, and it cannot be said that social and political circumstances have changed radically in the last thirteen years.

The Government and the Party, which amount to the same thing, have long been aware of the need to remove this cancer that threatens to destroy the foundations of the social order. In combating the corrupt elements, they have not been complacent, and we regularly receive news of the summary executions of guilty officials. The proverbial oriental cruelty still shocks us, but hanging in soccer fields in front of thousands of spectators has proved incapable of putting an end to so much criminal internship . According to government estimates, between 1978 and 2003, corrupt officials have illegally smuggled some $50 billion out of the country. The Global Times newspaper reports that the issue of government officials caught stealing more than one million yuan (about 100,000 euros) increased by 19% in 2009 compared to the previous year.

Unlike what happened with the drafting of the '97 code, in this case the government has promoted a public discussion , in which citizens have been able to express themselves through the Internet. This desire to listen to the people and to involve them in the definition of the political diary seems admirable to us, but there are reasons for mistrust. The government that invites the people to express their opinions freely is the same government that simultaneously tightens censorship on the Internet and imprisons the most troublesome bloggers and dissidents. We have known for centuries that the duty to obey the Executive is inseparably linked to the right to criticize it, and that a government that evades the public discussion and stifles criticism, either has murky interests that it prefers to hide or has no solid arguments to defend its policy. Concealment nestles naturally at the heart of power, which is why pressure for greater transparency is decisive in the fight against despotism. If this is true for the most established democracies, what can be said of a regime like China's? Political scientists can discuss in academic forums whether it has already ceased to be despotic to reach the simply authoritarian phase, which would be the prelude to a truly democratic one. There is no significant progress in this direction, so there are good reasons to suppose that gestures such as the promulgation of the new moral code are only intended to contain an evil that threatens a status quo that, at final, does not want to change.