An online survey by the China Youth Daily, released Tuesday, found that some 60 percent of Chinese feel no responsibility for reporting official misconduct or are unsure if they should.
The survey was conducted after Procurator-General Cao Jianming gave his work report to the annual parliamentary session last week.
The survey, conducted by the Social Research Center of the China Youth Daily through qq.com, found that 35.9 percent of the 3,259 respondents said anti-corruption efforts had nothing to do with them and 19.5 percent said such efforts were the responsibility of government organizations.
Cao said that 2,687 officials were investigated last year for graft, malfeasance or infringement of people's rights. He also said 10,315 cases of commercial bribery were committed by government workers, involving more than 2.1 billion yuan (about 308 million U.S. dollars).
Shi Jie, director of the Dingli Law Firm in southwest China's Sichuan Province, said: "People have many worries and doubts about reporting corruption. They worry that no organizations will deal with their reports and that they may be the target of revenge. It doesn't necessarily mean that people lack enthusiasm for social affairs."
Shi is also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. During the just-concluded annual "two sessions", he raised a proposal to drop the requirement that real names be used when reporting corruption online.
"We need to reconsider how we should improve the system to protect informers and give them proper feedback on their reports," he added.
According to the survey, factors that kept people from reporting graft included no feedback, fear of revenge, inadequate evidence and not knowing where to make reports.
"Many reports went unanswered, and some were even transferred between different organizations and ended up in the hands of offenders themselves, resulting in an embarrassing situation where offenders met face to face with the informers," said He Zengke, a senior official with the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau.
He urged the government to make rules to regulate corruption reports and protect the rights of informers. He also called for report-receiving offices to be incorporated into supervision departments. Currently the offices are only responsible for receiving reports, which they must then transfer to supervision departments for investigation. This process often resulted in delay or neglect, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2009)