AS a way of heralding the new year, it is a tradition for Chinese media professionals to compile year-end chronicles of noteworthy events in the past year and reflect on their implications.

Chang Ping, a respected newspaperman and widely syndicated columnist, delivered a lecture on December 30 at Fudan University, in which he offered his retrospective insights.

Although I didn't have the good fortune to attend his lecture, it only took a few mouse clicks for me to find the online transcript of his speech titled "Li Gang is Li Gang, my father is my father."

Observers familiar with the current state of affairs in China must have heard of the cursed name, and the infamous statement "my father is Li Gang" associated with the disgraced police officer.

Last October, a Hebei University student named Li Qiming drove a car under the influence and hit two female students on the campus, killing one and gravely injuring another.

When he was finally stopped, the young man, reeking of alcohol, brazenly proclaimed that his father Li Gang is a local police chief.

Convinced that he was not to be messed with, the young man defiantly dared bystanders to call the police.

"My father is Li Gang" quickly caught on as a catchphrase and it's a shorthand way of cautioning victims of official wrongdoing against foolishly confronting the perpetrators.

Thanks to his ne'er-do-well son, much-discredited Li Gang will almost certainly enter China's Hall of Infamy if there is one.

Continued public scrutiny has kept the Li Gang case from being settled behind closed doors after the victims' families were compensated.

Display of backbone

And that's the point of Chang's somewhat confusing speech title: I may not have a hell of a father like Li, who would spring me from jail and clean up the terrible mess I made, but I don't envy those whose fathers are the likes of Li.

Chang observed that in recent years an increasing number of people have been scorning abusive officials, rather than cozying up to them. And this display of backbone appears to be a social trend, he said.

"My father isn't Li Gang" doesn't convey their dismay at not being born into well-connected families, rather, this quip indicates defiance and mockery of an ugly truth better left unspoken.

Chang's sarcastic observation may be true, but open defiance can only go so far.

In reality, there's no room for open defiance. One can only expect two choices and outcomes if he or she pushes the envelope too far - either back down and become co-opted, or remain defiant and risk being crushed mercilessly.

Perhaps crushed literally, just like the two people who were crushed to death recently in what is widely believed to be deliberate murder.

A tale of two 'accidents'

Authorities, however, explained away the deaths as "accidents."

On December 25, Qian Yunhui, head of Qingzhaiqiao Village in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, was hit and run over by a truck. He died instantly.

Qian had been petitioning authorities over farmland grabs in his village. The developers whom he offended in the dispute were believed to have ordered the killing.

Witnesses confirmed the murder suspicion, but the alleged crime scene, filled with gore, was quickly cleaned up and the body removed after police arrived. No evidence remained.

Forces behind the scene moved fast. The witnesses were subjected to lie detector tests. Under pressure, some recanted their earlier testimony that Qian had been pinned down and thrown under the truck to be crushed. To dismiss public "rumors," Wenzhou police said investigators found the death to be only an "accident."

The public has good reasons to believe otherwise. An online video clip of the scene showed Qian was killed on the left side of a 10-meter wide road.

Unless the truck driver learned to drive in Britain, no convincing explanation can be given for the strange spot of the "accident."

In another "accident" on January 3, Li Li, a mother of two, was knocked down and crushed by an excavator working on a river-diversion project in Zhengyang County, Henan Province. Officials said Li slipped.

Witnesses had a totally different story. The excavator had intentionally hit Li, who, along with eight or nine other women, was trying to block the vehicle and halt the project that they said would encroach to within 5 meters of their properties.

Locals affected by the project said officials had misled them about the plan.

A resident surnamed Wang said there were many people standing by the river at the time of the incident. There was no way the project workers failed to see Li and no way she could have slipped and fallen the way officials described.

The cause of this tragedy is the recklessness of some people in carrying out the project no matter what. The Beijing News reported on January 6 that Li's death was greeted with grotesque smiles from project staff standing just meters away.

While the culpable officials have been disciplined, and 600,000 yuan (US$90,924) in compensation paid to Li's family, public anger simmers over what officials insist was an "accident."

Officials may well argue that the public is paranoid and prickly, hard to persuade, even if they are told the truth. But people can be forgiven for assuming the worst. Paranoia is the legacy of past official lies. While Li's family can at least take some solace from compensation, considered handsome by local standards, Wang Peng is less lucky.

The librarian in Gansu Province made headlines last December when he was persecuted for blowing the whistle on a college classmate who he said had cheated years ago in the civil servant entrance exam.

With this act of derring-do, he infuriated his classmate's mother, a powerful local politician, and was arrested in a cross-border manhunt. He then was thrown into a detention house in the neighboring Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to be tortured.

Broken promise

After media rallied to his support and helped secure his release, Wang was promised by his captors, Wuzhong City police in Ningxia, a public apology and 30,000 yuan in compensation.

In a dramatic turn, police have broken their word, saying they never agreed to pay that much but will offer a tenth of that figure.

Cases of official hypocrisy are never rare, but nowhere near as blatant as in this case.

If the authorities cannot conduct themselves the same way they expect the public to behave, why should they ask the latter to be reasonable, to not believe in "rumors" and to buy their story about "accidents."

When these official lies are told in such multitude, even the authoritative voices of those in the upper echelons of the political hierarchy lose their power to persuade.

The Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI), the Party's top anti-graft watchdog, recently found itself having to defend the anti-corruption campaign it leads, after the public gave it an extremely low performance rating.

Gan Yisheng, a top CCDI ombudsman, said the number of Party cadres disciplined last year accounted for 0.15 percent of overall Party members - a great achievement in the ongoing fight against corruption.

An achievement, indeed. But more needs to be done, especially with regard to many local officials, who instead of being sacked and disgraced, are lying, grabbing, bulldozing and bullying their way to promotion.