Party and Government Bodies Detail Early 2005 Anti-Corruption Work

August 29, 2005

The Communist Party's Central Disciplinary Inspection Commission (CDIC) and the Ministry of Supervision (MOS) on August 26 jointly announced the results of anti-corruption efforts for the first half of 2005. The announcement said that 25 provinces and 36 ministries and commissions have taken measures to carry out the "Outline of a System Stressing Education, Institutions, and Prevention to Punish and Prevent Corruption in China," that the Politburo published on January 16, 2005.

The report also claimed that many government agencies had opened hot-lines, complaint centers, and Web sites for reporting on corruption. In addition, the report claims that over 10,000 leading cadres voluntarily had turned in cash and valuables totaling some 62,460,000 RMB. Over 4,600 Party cadres were found to have engaged in gambling, which the Party recently forbid because it is an incentive to corrupt official behavior. The report said that CDIC and MOS inspection teams reached 20 provinces and cities, the Xinjiang production and construction corps, and 9 centrally-managed banks, redressing harms to public interest, like confiscated lands and withheld wages.

This report claimed to have promoted "transparency in government affairs, village affairs, and factory affairs." Elsewhere in China, however, the Party is experimenting with systems of undercover surveillance into the personal lives of leading cadres, and mutual supervision within families to ferret out hidden corruption. An experimental program of secret "cadre observers" in Chongqing has elicited widespread condemnation in China, as running counter to the principles of transparency and supervision of government by citizens.