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Before this year's sessions of the 10th National People's
Congress (NPC) and the 10th National Committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an Xinhua News
Agency website survey indicated the topic that most concerned
ordinary Chinese was the State's anti-corruption campaign.
Chinese are not alone in their concern.
Ray Tsuchiyama from the United States, who works for Time
Warner, has noticed China's resolution to fight against corruption
by watching television broadcasts of the sessions.
He said carrying out resolute efforts makes it clear top leaders
and legislators want to build a law-based government and
society.
"If government agencies are seen to abide by the law, it makes
chief executive officials in foreign firms in Japan, United States,
South Korea, and Europe feel secure in investing funds here," he
said.
Constantin Benedikt Schnacker, who used to work for the
Delegation of German Industry and Commerce Shanghai, agrees that a
successful campaign against graft can help attract more foreign
investment, but noted the task is arduous.
However, for NPC deputy Zhang Xuezhong, who is also the Party
secretary of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, fighting
corruption is a campaign that the Party and the government have to
win. Otherwise, the people's support will be gone and along with it
is the very foundation for a richer and stronger country.
Zhang believed the key to winning the battle is to ensure each
level of the government is led by an official willing to severely
punish corruption and be a clean model himself.
As far as Sichuan is concerned, three measures have been adopted
to achieve the goal. In addition to examples promising severe
punishment for whoever has committed corruption, the Sichuan
Provincial Party Committee started to grade officials by adopting
one more new standard last year: citizen evaluations.
Finally, officials in charge of discipline inspections must be
competent and highly responsible to guarantee such important
information as the evaluation of people towards their
"father-mother'' officials.
Investigations and prevention of corruption and job-related
crimes will remain the primary task of Chinese prosecutors for this
year , said CPPCC member and Vice-Procurator General Zhao
Dengju.
"More efforts should be given to helping professional groups set
up and strengthen their supervision mechanisms and promoting
education about the legal system,'' Zhao said.
As for some essential sectors like the finance industry, special
measures have been planned to ensure a clean operation. Sources
with the Communist Party of China's Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection disclosed a task forces from related central
government departments will be stationed in big State-owned
commercial banks on auditing missions.
But CPPCC member Cao Keming urged strong improvements to the
interior supervision of judicial and procuratorial authorities as
well, because a large number of corruption cases have been
disclosed by the public instead of these authorities. Official
figures show public tips have provided about 80 percent of the
clues to cases eventually handled by prosecutors.
Along with a number of NPC deputies and CPPCC members, Wu
Mingxi, vice-chairman of the democratic party of China Zhi Gong
Dang and vice-secretary general of the 10th CPPCC National
Committee, believe the anti-corruption situation in some regions
and sectors remain quite austere.
However, it is not realistic to put an immediate end to
corruption as soon as a sound political system is installed. The
fight against corruption requires not only a breakthrough in
political reform, but support of economic measures and the
co-ordination of social reforms, he said.
He believes the enhanced attention that people attach to the
campaign serves not only as pressure to press forward, but as
encouragement.
That's because a larger proportion of the people actually have
been awakened by the country's unprecedented crackdown last year,
when officials above ministerial or provincial-level were removed
and punished.
It is in the last year that an annual survey of the Communist
Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
grading people's satisfaction about the country's anti-corruption
effort produced a result of 51.9 percent. That is the first time in
eight years that the rate exceeds 50 percent.
(China Daily March 12, 2004)
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