Beijing law enforcement officials have opened an exhibition showing the flipside of the Chinese belief that "a successful man must have an understanding wife."

For the first time, the "understanding wives" of corrupt officials are pictured with their husbands in an anti-corruption exhibition, which opened on Tuesday.

The exhibition organized by the Beijing Procuratorate highlights cases such as Li Zhiwen, former director of the health bureau of Nanping City in east China's Fujian Province.

Li was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for taking bribes relating to project tenders and quality inspections.

Li's wife, Wei Xianglian, "contributed significantly" to his corruption by staying at home to help receive bribes. She was sentenced to three years in prison with a five-year reprieve.

The wife of Sun Junxue, former director of the economic and trade department of Beijing Shougang Corporation, helped her husband receive bribes after her retirement. The two accepted a total of 880,000 yuan (US$114,000), and both were jailed.

"The spouses of government officials are also the targets of people offering bribes. Our fight against corruption will focus not only on officials, but also on their spouses," said Li Qiang, a Beijing procurator.

The exhibition for the first time also contains a section on corrupt village officials.

Fang Shumin, a former village official in Yanqing County, Beijing, was jailed for five months for embezzling almost 7,000 yuan from a fund for poverty relief and another used to renovate unsafe houses.

"Previously we didn't show this kind of case because the sums involved are small. But we realized that such cases had a very bad effect in rural areas because the money was supposed to be used to save lives," said Liu Kunfeng, director of the crime prevention department of the procuratorate.

"That kind of corruption endangers rural stability. So we set up this section to draw attention to the corruption of village officials," he said.

The exhibition features 134 corruption cases and will tour 18 districts and counties in Beijing over 10 days.

The show focuses on lower-ranking officials, as senior officials are normally featured in anti-graft exhibitions to demonstrate the government's efforts to stamp out corruption.

Liu said the change of focus was designed to increase the show's appeal to Chinese citizens.

"Usually we only pay attention to leading officials, but ignore minor officials, such as a state-owned company accountant, who can have plenty opportunities to become corrupt," said Wang Ping, an official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, at the show.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2007)