Q: In recent years, China has repeatedly stressed the
importance of checking corruption. However, many of those involved
in corruption cases that have been investigated are leading
government officials and ruling party members. As the party in
power, how will the CPC tighten its supervision over its members
and government officials? What will it do to institutionalize the
anti-corruption campaign and bring it under a legal
framework?
A: This is exactly what the CPC is most concerned about. As
China proceeds with its reform and opening-up policy, it must be
admitted that some signs of corruption have appeared in the CPC due
to changes in the external environment and flaws that occurred in
the restructuring process. Leading government officials and ruling
party members constitute a large number of those involved in
corruption cases that have been investigated in recent years. This
speaks to the fact that the longer the Party is in office, the more
difficult it is to forestall corruption. The CPC's governance will
be adversely affected unless this paradox is properly
addressed.
Regimes come and go. The rise and fall of feudal dynasties were
only too natural in the history of China and other countries. Since
the 1980s, this historical cycle has been affecting ruling
communist parties in various countries. Some parties that had been
in power for decades were driven out of office. Some of them
declined and fell. Behind these failures are essentially internal
party problems, in particular, the corruption of the party
leaders.
As corrupt practice jars with its nature and purpose, the CPC
has no choice but to fight relentlessly against corruption.
Countering this grave threat to the rule of the CPC has always been
one of the most pressing concerns of the Chinese people. To that
end, a series of polices have been in place ever since the 1980s.
Despite the progress that has been made in building a clean and
honest Party and reining in corruption, corrupt officials keep
cropping up due to the persistence of the conditions that breed
corruption in some areas. This reminds us of the prime reason for
corruption in certain regions and organizations—inefficiency in
power supervision. Stringent mechanisms are required to tighten
supervision within the Party, thereby eradicating corruption.
Over the past 10 years or so, the CPC has been constantly
exploring ways of tightening inner-Party supervision in an effort
to remove the dirt that generates flaws. Inner-Party supervision
mechanisms such as "democratic life meetings," "performance and
honesty reporting," "inspections," "conversation," and "admonition"
have been established.
According to the Regulations on Internal Supervision of the CPC,
democratic life meetings are occasions where leading Party
officials at various levels discuss the existing problems and
conduct self-criticism. Performance and honesty reporting means
that the leading officials of CPC committees at different levels
should report their work to a prescribed audience once or twice a
year. Under the inspection mechanism, CPC officials at the central
or provincial level are dispatched on inspection trips to the
lower-level CPC committees to learn how things work there. The
conversation mechanism requires the officials in charge of a CPC
committee and its disciplinary and organizational departments to
talk with major officials of the committee's subordinate organs on
a sporadic basis, to know how they are getting on. Admonition is
the warning given to officials who have shown a worrying
tendency.
Based on these mechanisms, the Regulations on Internal
Supervision of the CPC were released in December 2003, representing
the first initiative made by the CPC to institutionalize
inner-Party supervision. It has set forth the rules for CPC
members, leading officials in particular, to subject themselves to
supervision from within the Party, outside the Party and from all
Chinese people.
In addition, renewing its efforts to curb corruption through
effective mechanisms, the CPC issued a series of regulations and
guidelines on Party discipline, inspection of high-ranking local
Party and government officials, operation of CPC discipline
inspection organizations and the building of a comprehensive
anti-corruption system consistent with China's market economy.
These initiatives have ushered in a new era in the development of
the anti-corruption regime.
Stricter discipline needs to be instituted before good
governance of the country can be realized. As a party with a
history of 84 years and in power for 56 years, the CPC is expected
to carry out strong inner-Party supervision and to exercise
stringent self-discipline. Curbing corruption is, as always, a
matter of life and death for the CPC.