justice, they couldn't find the original material. If you were a good man, you had to go and prove you didn't kill someone, that's all there was to it.
The lack of original material is a disaster for modern Chinese historical records. As Mr Jingguan put it, it is not only a clearing-out when there is a regime change, it is also a by-product of the fear of taking responsibility because no one wants to assume lifelong responsibility for everything they did while in office. In the Chinese system of government and administration there is no such legal concept as 'official actions entail lifelong responsibility'. As a result, no matter how corrupt you are as an official, so long as you're not caught while in office, after leaving it you can rest easy and enjoy the privileges you have won for yourself.
XINRAN: After the Cultural Revolution, you were transferred to be manager of the Sanguanmiao office. Why were you sent there?
JINGGUAN: I'd done forty years of law enforcement work, and I felt very low and didn't want to do it any more. The more I did, the worse I felt and the more fearful too. Well, that's life. At the beginning of the year, I didn't want to go on, and the next month I went out into the streets and saw a new lot of big character posters. It was the anti-crime and anti-reactionaries campaign. Most of my cadre colleagues had been sent to work in communes, and the constables had been sent to work in factories. That left just ten cadres and ten constables. I thought of the cases I was handling and [holding up the thumb of his right hand] I was this one, and the other nine were no good, and I thought if I don't go back to work, there'll be even more miscarriages of justice in this district, so I went back and dealt with 174 cases that year. I relied on facts and proof. Basically I stopped at that point; the sentence was determined by my seniors in uniform, I didn't have anything to do with that.
I left the PSB after more than forty years. If I'd gone on any longer, my life would have been a few years shorter. Why? Because the work was too hard. I left the courts after more than twenty years, and if I'd stayed there longer, my life would also have been a few years shorter. Why? Because there were too many cock-ups, and these cases all involved human lives and required the greatest care.
When I gave in my notice, I was disciplined for it. You want to leave? Then you'll be demoted! I said, OK, that's fine by me. I'll leave this place that gives me sleepless nights, and have a bit of a rest, why shouldn't I?
XINRAN: Why did forty-odd years of law enforcement work give you so much pain?
JINGGUAN: No one believes you. There's a stream of political movements that punish people in law enforcement first. Every day you want to arrest bad people but you're worried about being arrested as a bad person yourself. You don't know what political wind will blow tomorrow. Tell me where else it's like this to be a policeman. People like you don't know, all you see is either the police swaggering around or the bad people we've caught, but the police in China don't have an easy life!
XINRAN: Do you think China has a healthy legal system?
JINGGUAN: What legal system? The law hardly exists. The law is the expression on your chief 's face. The law is what your bosses say. Even in 1958, at the first Chinese conference on law and politics, the head of the PSB, a man called Luo Ruiqing, said on behalf of the Central Committee that Chairman Mao had said from then on there would be no amending the law or the constitution, the law was what the Party Central Committee maintained and what the
I'm an old man now, and as far as crime is concerned, I say what I know, and what I've told you is the truth about all those people's lives.
XINRAN: Do you have regrets about the life you've led?
JINGGUAN:… [He looks up at the ceiling, the corners of his mouth working in a great effort, exhaling a long breath through his nostrils. His body language clearly expresses the pain in his heart.] None at all! Wouldn't regret mean I'd done something wrong? I haven't done anything wrong. I couldn't determine the time when I was going to come into this world.
XINRAN: If you were born again, would you work in law enforcement in China?
JINGGUAN: Never! In every dynasty, working in law enforcement in China has always been like living in the eye of the storm, and that's hard. And it doesn't matter which dynasty, see? Everyone knows in China that when the dynasty changes, all the ministers change too. What does that mean? Well, where do the ministers from the previous regime go? If they're not demoted, they retire or they're killed! Who kills them? The emperor! 'The emperor kills wrongdoers, but the ministers get the blame.'
XINRAN: There's been a big increase in students studying law and law enforcement at university level, sir. So is law enforcement in a better position than it was before the reforms of the 1980s?
JINGGUAN: There's more awareness of the law and regulations than there used to be, but now that people know more, there are new problems. Central government makes policy, but the grass roots carries it out. Every time the policy is improved, it comes up against an ignorant, reckless response at the grass roots, and that's the end of it. The law is enforced by people. Take, for example, people who used to run the courts, basically us senior cadres. In 1982, at the 12th Congress of the CCP, Deng Xiaoping instigated the policy of appointing younger cadres. This policy began to work its way through the layers of government: generally speaking, the age of departmental heads in central government was not to exceed sixty-five, for deputy heads it was sixty, and central government committee members should not in principle be older than seventy. By the first half of 1983, the policy had reached provincial governments, and by the end of that year, municipal governments. By 1984, the policy had reached the regions, and affected cadres of fifty and over, and without diplomas. Most of them were demoted. Back then, most didn't have diplomas, as they hadn't completed lower or upper middle school, let alone university. Also, they had no specialist training. Court officers nowadays are basically all university graduates, starting from the 5,000 constables recruited by the PSB, all with university diplomas – and 40,000 applied, all with these diplomas, but even a university diploma doesn't necessarily get you the job – people don't exist in a vacuum, though, they come in all shapes and sizes, so how does it work? Today's courts may look on the surface as if they're run according to the law, but actually it's according to who's got power, and even more, according to who's got money. Young cadres today are pretty daring, one of them stashed away up to 200,000 yuan in bribes in a year or so, and was sentenced to eighteen years.
XINRAN: Do you think there's any hope for the law enforcement agencies in this province?
JINGGUAN: There are still problems in public security, and the calibre of the officers is very uneven. Court officers at all levels are university graduates, so they should be higher calibre.
XINRAN: So there should be some hope, then.
JINGGUAN: That depends on what you mean! At the Spring Festival 2007, I saw a film on TV about the last Qing dynasty emperor. From the first emperor, Nurhaci, to the last, Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, there were constant violent revolts. Now China's changed too rapidly, it's too extreme.
XINRAN: You've experienced life both before and after Liberation, you were in Zhengzhou's first cohort of police officers, and you've seen how public security in China has changed. What has made you happy or sad in all those years in public security? Can you tell me three of the happiest and saddest things?
JINGGUAN: The saddest? I've cried three times in my life, and shed a tear or two another three times. The first time I cried was in November 1942. It was so many days until the Spring Festival, and there was not a grain to eat. The family had split up and there was no one to look after us. We had nothing to eat or drink and I was young, and I cried. The second time I cried was when my father died before the New Year, at only thirty-eight. We had no adult male in my family, and I cried for the whole night! Another time was when the Japanese reached Zhengzhou in 1944, and we had nothing to eat for days. Then I went to be a coolie for the Japanese, and worked from first light until dark. Those Japanese were bad people and I'm a good person, but I had no money to keep us alive, all I could do was work for the Japanese. When I thought about this, I cried, I really cried… then when my mother died, I didn't cry so hard.
I shed a tear or two, you can't call it crying, just a tear or two, in 1952, when I had been a sergeant for three years, and the Three Antis and the Five Antis campaigns had begun. I was investigated. They said: 'Your employees are corrupt, you must be corrupt too. You're not honest and conscientious.' It was awful. I didn't cry, just shed a tear or two.
