Are some alphabets and numerals superior to others? The answer is "yes" for Song Jianguo, former Beijing traffic police chief. On Monday, Song was accused in court of taking 24 million yuan ($4 million) in bribes by misusing his power to grant license plates starting with "Jing A" or "Jing A8", which had been frozen for more than a decade, to his "customer friends". In auto plates, "jing" is the Chinese character shortened for Beijing.

Song received about 100,000 yuan for every such license plate he approved, and his "friends" sold them at higher prices to other people. In the black market, a license plate starting with A8 following the Beijing character could be worth about 800,000 yuan today.

Cars registered before the late 1990s, when private cars were not common in the country and most of the cars belonged to State organizations, had number plates starting with "Jing A" and five numbers, and the people who owned them could reuse them on new cars after discarding the old ones.

The "A8" license plates were initially reserved for government departments, and traffic policemen were often lenient toward the drivers. But after the traffic police strengthened law enforcement following the installation of the traffic surveillance system, such people started losing their "privileges".

The Beijing traffic authorities stopped issuing license plates starting with "Jing A" from the beginning of this century. Since then the number of vehicles on the road has increased manyfold, and the license plates being issued in the city now are sequenced with the letter Q.

In fact, the authorities ended the government's monopoly on license plates two years ago, and the new government cars' license plates are no different from those of private cars, but the feeling of superiority associated with the once-privileged license plate numbers has not. As a result, many people still believe such license plates can guarantee privileges, or at least earn the respect of other drivers. And most of them buy the brands and models of cars that the government uses to "match" the license plates.