A senior court official has suggested establishing the crime of bribing foreign officials and officers of international organizations based in China, to help fulfil the country's obligations to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.

Xiong Xuanguo, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, said the criminal law should be amended to include the crime of giving bribes to foreign officials, "but it is not yet the time to establish the crime of foreign officers accepting bribes".

The official was quoted this week by Legal Daily while giving his views on criminal law amendments to meet the terms of the convention.

Although there are currently no specific laws in China against bribing foreign officials, the Convention prescribes that both giving bribes to and accepting bribes from foreign public employees should be defined as criminal acts.

"Some experts suggested completely copying and replanting the convention's stipulations, but I think they (giving and accepting bribes) need to be treated separately."

Establishing the crime of giving a bribe to a foreign official is a mandatory article in the convention.

"China holds the same strict and resolute attitude as other global communities toward the fight against bribery crimes," Xiong said. "The establishment (of the new crime) will help with international criminal justice assistance and cooperation."

In his speech at the opening of the 17th National Congress of the CPC, President Hu Jintao said China never tolerates corruption.

Wang Zuofu, a professor in criminal law at Renmin University of China, said the establishment of such a crime will also help maintain the country's commercial reputation and standardize the behavior of citizens, legal personnel and other organizations in international commercial activities.

However, Xiong said from a practical perspective it is currently very difficult to establish the crime of accepting bribes by foreign public officials, as they enjoy special diplomatic rights and cases would be subject to complex legal barriers.

In recent years, there have been a number of graft cases involving multinationals, although most have involved the bribing of Chinese officials.

A survey conducted by Anbound said foreign companies were involved in 64 of the 100,000 corruption scandals investigated by Chinese authorities in the past 10 years, and the number is rising, China Radio International reported.

For example, US computer giant IBM was embroiled in a corruption scandal involving former China Construction Bank chief Zhang Enzhao. Zhang was given a 15-year sentence for corruption in November 2006 for taking a 4.15 million yuan (US$550,000) bribe to facilitate loan and contract arrangements.

(China Daily October 20, 2007)