Nothing is more eye-catching and sensational than the online disclosure, one after another, of officials who have more than one hukou, or household registration, and identity card, which they have used to acquire dozens of properties, in one case more than 100 properties under different identities.

Nothing is more detrimental to the reputation of the government and the Party than the association people may have established between these exposures and the irremediable grimness of the situation.

For the governing Party and the central authorities, their immediate response should be the launch of well-organized probes into these cases and then making public the facts as quickly and thoroughly as possible.