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According to the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released yesterday by Transparency International (TI), the Chinese mainland ranks 70th with a score of 3.3, moving up eight positions from last year. Hong Kong and Macao were ranked 15th and 26th respectively, while Taiwan slipped two places to 34.

Taiwan's drop was attributed to recent corruption scandals involving its leader Chen Shui-bian, who is under mounting pressure to step down as leader.

The 2006 CPI indicates a clear correlation between corruption and poverty, with a large number of impoverished states at the bottom of the ranking.

"Corruption traps millions in poverty," TI chair Huguette Labelle said.

"Despite a decade of progress in establishing anti-corruption laws and regulations, today's results indicate that much remains to be done before we see meaningful improvement to the lives of the world's poorest citizens."

Professor Hu Xingdou from the Beijing Institute of Technology said that corruption levels are directly proportional to poverty levels. The more impoverished a society is, the more corruption there will be.

The 2006 CPI is a composite index that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys that poll perceptions of public sector corruption in 163 countries around the world, the greatest scope of any CPI to date. It awards scores from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels of perceived corruption.

Ren Jianming, a professor with the Research Office Against Corruption at the School of Public Policy and Management under Tsinghua University, pointed out that no matter what the rank is and how high a country's score is, it is still only an estimate. But considering its scope, it could, to some extent, be considered to be objective and reasonable.

Ren praised the Chinese government's achievements in trying to weed out corruption.

He pointed out that on October 25, the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA), an independent and non-political body, was officially established with China's Jia Chunwang, procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, as its elected president.

However, he stressed that although the 2006 CPI could be said to be objective, it might not be an accurate reflection of the current situation. He reckoned that China could have been given an even higher ranking.

At the bottom of the index is Haiti with the lowest score of 1.8, followed by Guinea, Iraq and Myanmar who each scored 1.9. Finland, Iceland and New Zealand share the top spot with 9.6 points, while the UK and US are ranked 11th and 20th respectively.

(China.org.cn by Wang Ke, November 8, 2006)