An intriguing sideshow to this week's plenum of the Communist Party elite was an eight-part television programme showing corrupt cadres making confessions, and it has proven a big hit with viewers.
The programme is a co-production between the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CDDI), which has spearheaded President Xi Jinping's anti-graft investigation, and state broadcaster China Central Television, and it makes for grimly fascinating viewing.
"People everywhere are talking about Always on the Road," the corruption watchdog said in a statement.
The show began last week and dovetailed neatly with the Sixth Plenum of the Communist Party elite. Its prime-time slot on CCTV has garnered millions of viewers, as has its online broadcast.
“I was aware of the regulations that prohibit the offspring of officials from doing business [in the areas or the same city where the officials are in charge]. It was the lust for money that clouded my judgment,” said one cadre.
The plenum ended yesterday, having anointed President Xi Jinping to "core" leader status on a par with ex-supremoes Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, but the four-day meeting also spent a lot of time saying the battle against corruption was only beginning and that it would permeate all levels of authority.
Mr Xi has promised to stamp out graft among the “tigers” of the top ranks of the party, and the “flies” of the lower echelons. Scores of top cadres have been jailed in the campaign, which Mr Xi says has become so severe it could destabilise the party’s grip on power.
‘Tigers’ humbled
Unsurprisingly, it is the "tigers" that hog the ratings, and Always on the Road features footage of the trial of former security czar and Politburo standing committee grandee Zhou Yongkang.
The interviews were recorded while the suspects were on remand awaiting court action. Some of the testimonies came across as pleas for leniency, or carefully scripted, but some came across as just straight-out odd.
One leading cadre, Zhou Benshun, who was formerly party chief of northern Hebei province, revealed how his Buddhist beliefs had led to him burying his tortoise with religious scrolls, even though this goes against the rules for party officials on "superstition".
An investigator Wang Han told the programme he had a nanny to look after his pets.
Li Chuncheng, a former deputy party boss of southwestern Sichuan, who was jailed for 13 years last year, wept as he told of how he had failed in his goal of achieving progress for society. "In the end, because of myself, I didn't get there. I really let the party down. I let the people down," Mr Li sobbed.
Some respondents online had a certain sympathy for the publicly disgraced cadres.
“It is a shame to confess on TV, it is such a humiliation to those people,” wrote one commentator called Can, on Weibo social media.
Another writer called Hong wrote: "Isn't it against the law to incriminate yourself? The Supreme Court and the police clearly made a statement recently saying they were banning criminals confessing on TV."
