President Xi Jinping addressed the third plenary session of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, stressing the difficulty of the anti-corruption drive and the need for determination to achieve results. Our reporter Su Yuting has been covering the meeting and asked experts for their assessment of this stage of the campaign.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the third plenary
session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in Beijing,
capital of China, Jan. 14, 2014. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)
China's anti-corruption campaign is expanding and getting tougher.
During a meeting of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping said the party must "continue to beat the tigers and flies". That means no sector or political rank will be exempt from the crackdown.
President Xi Jinping called for zero-tolerance of corruption, saying anyone who breaks the law must be strictly punished.
In 2013, the party leadership announced major progress in the anti-corruption campaign. 180,000 officials were disciplined last year -- 20,000 more than 2012.
Experts say reform of the party’s disciplinary mechanism and institutional innovation are new measures to solve the root of problem.
"I notice a very important sentence in President Xi Jinping’s speech. He says preventing corruption should be taken into account when any reform is being drawn up. So preventing corruption should be integrated in any reform policy. We should identify loopholes in every case and we should fix these problems by institutional reform." Prof. Cheng Wenhao with Tsinghua University said.
Improving channels for people to report graft also shows the government’s determination to strengthen supervision and transparency.
In 2013, there were 1.9 million tip-offs from the public.
"We should make our anti-corruption work more open and public. I think the most effective supervision is the supervision by the people. We should make every policy and reform strategy open to the people, so they know what officials are allowed to do and what they are not." Prof. Cheng said.
China’s new leadership has shown stronger determination to root out corruption. Achievements have been made, but many loopholes still need to be closed. To address that, the Chinese new leadership’s initial strong push is set to follow more anti-graft measures that will help ensure a cleaner government over the long-term.
