The Chinese Communist Party Central Commission for Discipline Inspection issued a bulletin on its just-concluded meeting on Tuesday, making public its major anti-corruption tasks for 2004.

According to the bulletin, the Third Plenary Session of the Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection held from Jan.11-13 in Beijing formulated a list of priority tasks on the fight against corruption, and ways to improve the style of work of the Party this year.

The bulletin says the Party will step up its ideological, ethical and discipline education to ensure Party and government officials abide by its disciplines.

The Party will beef up its efforts in investigating and handling major and important corruption cases, and continue to give priority to those involving leading officials at or above county levels who violate the Party's political disciplines, or who are corrupt, take bribes, and embezzle public money, according to the bulletin.

The commission will focus attention on cases involving construction projects, transfer of land-use rights, financial sector and procurement, restructuring and regrouping of state-owned firms that lead to severe loss of state-owned assets, and leading officials and law enforcement officers.

In order to protect the legitimate interests of the disadvantaged rural and urban residents, the commission said in the bulletin it will make greater efforts to fight such irregularities as illegal use of farmland for commercial development, delayed payment of compensation fees to farmers for permanent use of their land, or failure to compensate the farmers in part or in full.

The bulletin goes on to say that the Party will also give priority to such cases as infringement on the legitimate interests of urban residents in resettlement projects, employees of the enterprises facing restructuring or bankruptcy, and migrant workers whose employers delay payment of their wages in part or in full.

The Party will continue to crack down on excessive fee charges by government departments or government institutions in various sectors, according to the bulletin.

The Party will introduce step by step secret balloting in appointing or dismissing major officials, and a tenure system for leading Party and government officials.

During his Monday address to the session, Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said China would continue its fight against corruption and improve the Party's style of work, while improving inner-Party supervision of leading Party officials.

Hu, also president of the People's Republic of China, promised that the Party will investigate and punish whoever is found guilty of corruption, saying the Party shall never be appeasing any corrupt officials, or be soft-hearted toward them.

Hu said the Party will improve supervision of leading Party and government officials at various levels through the supervision of the Party, government departments, the general public, the mass media and other ways.

(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2004)