The top disciplinary watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, announced on Friday that Chen Shengyi, a former vice-mayor of Longyan, Fujian Province, has been expelled from the Party for taking bribes and committing adultery.

Chen is the latest official who has been caught up in a sex scandal over the course of the country's anti-corruption campaign since 2012. The word "adultery" has been appearing more frequently in the official statements issued after a corrupt official is put under investigation.

Media reports often follow these statements with more revelations about the officials' involvement with mistresses, visiting entertainment venues suspected of being brothels on the side, or "having improper relationships with multiple women."

Media reports show that since June 5, 2014 when Dai Chunning, then vice-president of China Export and Credit Insurance Co., was allegedly involved in "adultery," more than 30 officials probed by the Party's disciplinary body have also been officially accused of adultery.

Among them were senior officials such as Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; Ji Wenlin, former vice-governor of Hainan Province; and Shen Peiping, former vice-governor of Yunnan Province.

Observers have claimed that having extra-marital relationships or engaging in other illicit sexual activities is no longer simply a moral issue for government officials. In many cases, the officials involved traded their power for sex, which contributed to their on-duty crimes. Some legal experts suggest sexual bribery should also be considered a crime.

Abuse of power

According to a report published by the Beijing Times in 2014, about one-fourth of the approximately 240 officials transferred to judicial authorities as part of corruption investigations or for prosecution between 2012 to 2014 were also involved in sex scandals.

Besides being accused of taking a "huge amount" of bribes, Zhou Yongkang, China's former security chief and one of the highest-ranking officials brought down in the latest anti-graft drive, was said to have "committed adultery with multiple women," and "traded power for sex, or money for sex," according to a Xinhua report in late 2013.

The practice of power-for-sex deals is not just limited to high-ranking officials. Some grass-roots officials are also good at it. Long, a deputy squad leader of a district team of chengguan, or urban management officers, in Changsha, Hunan Province, was reported to have slept with a female hotel manager surnamed Liu.

Liu said she did it just to get Long would not make trouble about an advertisement board the hotel had illegally set up.

As with Zhou Yongkang's case, about which the CPC Central Committee has said that what Zhou did "seriously damaged the Party's image," some officials' involvement in sex scandals has stirred up huge waves of sensation and shock when the stories were made public.

After a sex tape involving Lei Zhengfu, former district chief of Chongqing, was made public in 2012, a dozen local officials including Lei were sacked for having illicit sexual relations with women.

Fu Xujian, head of the Hunan-based Huaxia Center for Clean Governance Studies, said that corruption involving sex is not just personal or private misbehavior. "The lure of beauty and sex is only an incentive, the unlimited abuse of power is the real problem," he said.

On the other hand, people who want to gain favors from officials try all means at their disposal to please the officials, starting from giving them gifts and cash, and later even giving them women.

Wang Yukai, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said that in earlier years the disciplinary environment was not as strict as it is today, and corrupt officials grew greedy for sexual misadventure. Some officials were already showing signs of sex-related malpractice, but this behavior was simply considered a "moral issue" and not taken care of in a timely fashion, Wang said.

Higher standards

The regulations concerning government employees and Party members have existing articles regarding this kind of behavior. The Civil Servant Law makes it clear that officials must become role models in following social norms. The Party's disciplinary regulations define adultery as an act that "seriously violates socialist morality," and stipulates that in serious cases of adultery, the official can be expelled from the Party, which means the end of an official's political life in China.

But still, disciplinary bodies and officials need to pay as much attention to sex-related violations as to the other abuses of power common in corruption cases, observers said.

Gao Bo, deputy secretary-general of the Clean Governance Studies Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the sex scandals of government officials are not just personal affairs, but are often linked to power-for-sex or power-for-money deals. Numerous corruption cases in the past have indicated that mistresses often eyed the officials' power, and were not really interested in their personalities.

"Party rules are stricter than State laws. As a result, Party members must follow higher standards concerning law and morality," said Gao.

Legal experts have said that sexual bribery should also be included in the Criminal Law, so that the authorities will have a solid legal basis for dealing with sex-related corruption.

Yi Shenghua, a criminal law lawyer with the Beijing-based Yingke Law Firm, said "adultery" has recently become a standard word used to describe officials' sex-related violations, instead the phrases "lifestyle problem" or "improper relationships with women" which were used in the past. This shows the progress made by the authorities in their handling of such violations, he said.

However, it will take time for sexual bribery to be regarded as a crime, Yi said. As a transitional measure, he called for the judicial authorities to see adultery as an important element when it comes to punishing an official for other crimes.