| BMW 's and Chinese Justice * * * * * In most places , the name " BMW " implies luxury and exclusivity . But in China , the brand has unwittingly found itself enmeshed in tales that illustrate the powerlessness of ordinary Chinese against the powerful and corrupt . The first scandal occurred last year , after a tractor filled with green onions scraped the side of a BMW in Harbin . The drivers of both the tractor and the metallic-silver luxury car were 45-year-old women , but any similarity between them ended there : the former was a peasant , the latter the wife of a wealthy businessman . After a confrontation between the two , the wealthy wife drove her BMW into the growing crowd of spectators on the roadside , killing the peasant woman and injuring 12 others . The case went to the local court , where the judge ruled it an " accidental traffic disturbance " and gave the driver a two-year suspended sentence . The judge 's ruling spurred rumors that he went easy on her because her husband was related to senior provincial officials . It quickly became a story of " rich versus poor , " widely cited as an example of high-level corruption . Over the next few months , newspapers and television stations ran with the story as it snowballed into a national obsession . Alarmed by the public reaction , the Harbin magistrate ordered the case reopened , only to have the suspended sentence confirmed when the case was closed this March . The big BMW story of late 2003 resurfaced quietly , before being buried again forever . That same month , a lottery scandal threw the BMW brand into the limelight once again . Lottery officials in Shaanxi province rejected a winning ticket , calling it a fake and denying its bearer , a 17-year-old security guard named Liu Liang , the grand prize of a $58,000 BMW and 120,000 yuan ( $14,510 ) in cash . Liu became so angry about being accused of fraud and denied the car that he climbed atop a high advertising billboard and threatened to jump as a show of innocence . But the story did n't end when police officers managed to talk him down . News broadcasts covered his continued insistence that he did not forge his ticket , along with the lottery center 's claims that their rejection of the ticket was legitimate . The police finally stepped in and , after a careful investigation , announced that they had found the true criminal : Yang Yongming , a private businessman whom the local lottery administration had contracted to organize ticket sales . Yang had conspired with the government officials directing the lottery , who were arrested for malfeasance , to fraudulently obtain the top prizes . In June Liu Liang finally got what he deserved - a BMW-325i sedan and a sincere apology from the lottery center . If the first scandal was a tragedy , the second was more like a farce . But both offer keys to understanding contemporary Chinese psychology . The outcry after the first BMW case was not really about the light sentence given to a rich woman , but about the lack of confidence ordinary people have in China 's judicial system . In China , power , money , and connections trump the law . Even as they are becoming ever more litigious , many Chinese believe that they have no hope of securing justice against the powerful . The apathetic response of the dead peasant woman 's husband to the $10,000 in compensation he received was telling . " I do n't care about the verdict and whether it is justice or not , " he said . The most harmful consequence is the public 's loss of trust in the system . Social trust is not something you can buy with money . If an entire society believes that you cannot depend on legal rights for protection - that one must instead rely on a web of relationships with those who have power and influence - questions about whether such a society is livable or desirable will remain . Similarly , in the second BMW case , people did n't blame a corrupt businessman ; they ascribed culpability to the lottery center , a government body . So instead of mistrusting one person , they grew suspicious of an institution - even of government itself . When a stubborn teenager went up against the mighty lottery authority with its army of auditors and inspectors and initial alibis , this individual , not the system , was the clear winner of the public 's admiration . Liu Liang may have been just a working-class kid , but there was wisdom in his words that there is still a " silent majority " who can affect the workings of China 's fragile society . He refused to settle privately , because he believed that if he let corrupt government officials off the hook , " they 'll keep scamming the public . " Thanks to his perseverance and the media 's investigation , the fraud was laid bare . Power corrupts everywhere , but individuals in China such as Liu have come to form a countervailing force . Even so , such marginal forces do not yet constitute a system for redressing grievances . While pop music fans in China can listen to whatever they like , including Madonna singing " I 'm gonna shake up the system , " ordinary Chinese need courage to speak such messages aloud . As one saying goes , " There is not want of conscience in Chinese , but there is want of courage . " |