Communist Party of China (CPC) has been taking a hard line on
corruption for the past five years, said a senior official with the
party's discipline watchdog on Friday.
Since the CPC's 16th National Congress in 2002, discipline
watchdogs at all levels have brought down a handful of high-ranking
officials during their anti-graft campaigns, said Zhang Huixin,
vice secretary of the party's Central Committee for Discipline
Inspection (CCDI) in an interview with Xinhua.
"In particular, the case of Shanghai's former Party chief Chen
Liangyu demonstrated CPC's great determination to fight against
corruption," Zhang said.
Chen Liangyu was removed from his post for his involvement in
the Shanghai pension fund scandal last year. He was the highest
ranking Communist official busted in a corruption probe in a
decade.
"In cracking these graft cases, the party not only punished the
wrongdoers, but also gave potentially corrupt officials a warning,"
Zhang said.
According to CCDI statistics, in 2006, 97,260 of the CPC's 70
million members were punished for corruption. The punishments
extended to prosecution for 3,530 cadres, seven of whom were at or
above the level of minister or governor.
"For years, reports from the public have been the chief source
we rely on to trace corrupt officials," Zhang said. "They are very
helpful in offering first-hand clues or even leading to major
breakthroughs."
But there have been increasing difficulties in cracking
corruption cases in recent years, Zhang said. "A high percentage of
them relate to economic violations or commercial bribery involving
a wide range of social sectors."
Last year, Chinese prosecutors dealt with 10,883 commercial
bribery cases, involving 3.8 billion yuan (US$494 million).
These cases involved an variety of economic activities ranging
from construction projects, land and drug purchases, property right
trade to government purchase and resource exploitation.
Despite this, the Party is resolute in probing into any
corruption cases no matter how high-ranking the officials are,
Zhang said.
Liu Fengyan, another CCDI vice secretary, said earlier that the
Party's discipline watchdog has intensified the fight against
corruption this year and is continuing to build a clean party.
Officials who purchase commercial housing at prices far lower
than market prices by taking advantage of the influence of their
posts, occupy and use borrowed houses and vehicles but fail to
return them, take part in gambling or seek illicit money in
activities like gambling, seek illegal profits by using others to
invest in the stock market, or seek other forms of illegal earnings
for themselves and their family relatives and friends will be
seriously dealt with, Liu said.
He said the Party will stringently crack down on money-for-power
favors, oppose waste and extravagance, curb the widespread trend of
building and renovating government offices against regulations,
eliminate sightseeing trips masquerading as "government-sponsored
tours", and promote a thrifty style of work among Party
members.
(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2007)