Gray area in law allows bribe-givers to escape deserved punishments

MA YONG, former Party chief of Yiyang city, Central China's Hunan province, was arrested and prosecuted in January for accepting bribes. However, media reports said the two officials who bribed him were promoted instead of being punished. Both bribe-takers and those offering bribes should be punished, says Beijing News:

The judiciary has long been criticized for punishing bribe-takers while being tolerant of those offering bribes. This criticism is justified, as corruption cannot be rooted out without punishing the bribers.

But the root of the problem lies in legislation rather than the judiciary. The Criminal Law states that any State employee who receives personal profit in some form in return for doing a "favor" is taking a bribe, and when anybody gives a State employee something in order to receive an "illicit gain", that's bribery. The difference lies in the term "illicit gain".