Several loopholes remain in the legislation China has designed
to stamp out commercial bribery, according to a blue paper on the
development of the country's legal system in 2007.
The paper, released by the Social Sciences Academic Press, says
the current laws are not strict enough and the penalties are too
lenient at both legislative and executive level.
The number of commercial bribery cases dealt with by Chinese
courts rose to 4,406 in the first seven months, 8.2 percent more
than the same period last year, according to the Supreme People's
Court (SPC).
Commercial bribery involving corporate wrong-doings rose 37.3
percent and cases relating to individual employees of companies
jumped by 52.1 percent.
"China will continue to target government officials who take
advantage of their posts to collude with companies for illegal
profit," Xiong Xuanguo, vice president of the SPC, said.
A host of "big fish" involved in bribery cases, including Zhang
Enzhao, former chairman of the China Construction Bank, Liu Wenjie,
former vice chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of
International Trade, and Xu Fangming, former head of the finance
department under the Ministry of Finance, have been severely
punished since the country's clean-up campaign which started in
2005.
China has seen 9,582 registered cases of commercial bribery
involving a total sum of more than 1.5 billion yuan (about US$200
million) in 2006.
(Xinhua News Agency October 23, 2007)