It was revealed last week that a Chinese man who imprisoned six women as sex slaves in a self-dug cellar was arrested in Luoyang city,  Henan province.

34-year-old Li Hao, a civil servant who has since been sacked and stripped of his party membership, kidnapped six young women working in nightclubs and enticed them into a 20 sq metre cellar that he had dug four metres beneath a storeroom. The victims were forced to have sex with Li during their imprisonment. Two of them were reportedly killed and buried in the cellar.

The four survivors were freed earlier this month after one of them went to the police when Li tried to loan her out as a prostitute. Li was arrested 48 hours later when he was trying to escape Luoyang, while one of the girls was also arrested as a murder suspect.

The New York Times have since reported that the journalist who exposed the horrifying crime had been followed and briefly detained by two men claiming to be government officials who accused him of “revealing state secrets”. Ji Xuguang, a reporter with the liberal-leaning Southern Metropolis Daily, later wrote in his newspaper,

I was only thinking about how to make my story as accurate as possible and to satisfy the public’s right to know, but I soon discovered that I failed to address the most important issue — face.

Before the truth becomes a state secret, the public and myself need answers.

For China Geeks blogger and documentary filmmaker Charlie Custer, the episode is yet another example of Chinese officials hiding truths in order to to save face:

Of course, what they actually meant by “revealing state secrets” is ‘causing the local police force to lose face’. You may be wondering how trying to conceal sex slavery, kidnapping, and double homicide isn’t somehow a bigger loss of face. By all accounts the criminal here was not some high-level official (…)

In both instances, the issue is face. Of course, in these cases, the “face-saving” effort was completely botched, but the principle is the same. Truth doesn’t enter into the equation, it’s all about polishing that turd and hoping someone — anyone — is fooled.

Custer adds that such attempts to save face only exacerbate events. Noting the disastrous Wenzhou train crash this summer, which saw officials scrambling to cover up scandalous details, he writes:

When people started criticizing them, they tried to cover that up by deleting posts, then tried to un-cover-up the cover-up by letting people speak freely for a while, then went back to covering-up by deleting posts when it seemed things were getting out of hand. In doing so, they took what was a disaster for the nation’s high speed rail and turned it into a disaster for the nation, but most especially, for themselves and their own legitimacy.