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Thursday, 17 September 2009
Party faces decision on graft
When Communist Party leaders meet in Beijing today, the nation will be watching to see whether they approve a new regulation that requires cadres to make public their family assets.
When Communist Party leaders meet in Beijing today, the nation will be watching to see whether they approve a new regulation that requires cadres to make public their family assets.
The fourth plenum of the Communist Party’s 17th Central Committee, which lasts until Friday, is also expected to discuss long-promised plans to increase internal democracy and to install Vice-President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission, strengthening his position as a successor to President Hu Jintao in 2012.
“One of the most urgent issues facing the party is corruption, especially corruption among high-ranking officials,” said Hu Xingdou , an academic at the Beijing University of Technology.
Mainlanders have been frustrated by the increasingly institutionalised corruption among the party’s rank and file, and the leadership’s repeated failures to deal with graft.
The Central Committee and the central government issued regulations - in 1995 and in 2001 - requiring officials to declare their income, but these were limited to officials’ salaries and allowances, and the information was not made available to the public or the media.
Professor Ren Jianming , director of Tsinghua University’s Research Centre for Clean Governance, said the new regulation would be significant because it would also require officials’ close family members to declare their assets.
He said many mainland corruption cases involved the family members of officials, and pointed to the scandal surrounding former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian.
The conviction of Chen and his wife, Wu Shu-chen, both given life sentences last week for graft, had galvanised interest among mainlanders, who would now keep a close eye on party decisions, Ren said.
“The focus will be the controversial ‘sunshine law’,” Ren said, referring to the requirement that all officials and their close relatives disclose their personal assets.
Most analysts agreed that a regulation requiring disclosure of assets would be a welcome move, although they were divided on its effectiveness.
For the past six years, some 50,000 officials have been convicted of corruption annually. The average size of bribes rose from 2.53 million yuan (HK$2.8 million) in 2007 to 8.84 million yuan last year, according to the Supreme People’s Court.
The debate over whether Beijing should establish a system of disclosure has raged for years, and public pressure has been rising recently.
In 1987, Wang Hanbin , then a legislature leader, said in a speech to parliament that China should learn from other countries. The party and government published related regulations in 1995 and 2001.
Early this year, Premier Wen Jiabao reignited the controversy during his debut Web chat with the public, saying his government was making “active preparation” for officials to declare their assets as part of efforts to promote transparency.
That triggered a nationwide internet campaign calling for the introduction of a system of disclosure.
The official Outlook magazine referred to this in an article on July 27, saying: “There is reason to believe that the Fourth Plenum will meet society’s expectations to come up with these new measures.”
But Professor Gao Xinmin of the Central Party School said its effectiveness could only be “maximised under democratic and scientific governance and the rule of law”. Zhang Ming , a political scientist at Renmin University, said the introduction of democracy and rule of law was the only solution.
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Party faces decision on graft
Cary Huang in Beijing
15 September 2009
When Communist Party leaders meet in Beijing today, the nation will be watching to see whether they approve a new regulation that requires cadres to make public their family assets.
The fourth plenum of the Communist Party’s 17th Central Committee, which lasts until Friday, is also expected to discuss long-promised plans to increase internal democracy and to install Vice-President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission, strengthening his position as a successor to President Hu Jintao in 2012.
“One of the most urgent issues facing the party is corruption, especially corruption among high-ranking officials,” said Hu Xingdou , an academic at the Beijing University of Technology.
Mainlanders have been frustrated by the increasingly institutionalised corruption among the party’s rank and file, and the leadership’s repeated failures to deal with graft.
The Central Committee and the central government issued regulations - in 1995 and in 2001 - requiring officials to declare their income, but these were limited to officials’ salaries and allowances, and the information was not made available to the public or the media.
Professor Ren Jianming , director of Tsinghua University’s Research Centre for Clean Governance, said the new regulation would be significant because it would also require officials’ close family members to declare their assets.
He said many mainland corruption cases involved the family members of officials, and pointed to the scandal surrounding former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian.
The conviction of Chen and his wife, Wu Shu-chen, both given life sentences last week for graft, had galvanised interest among mainlanders, who would now keep a close eye on party decisions, Ren said.
“The focus will be the controversial ‘sunshine law’,” Ren said, referring to the requirement that all officials and their close relatives disclose their personal assets.
Most analysts agreed that a regulation requiring disclosure of assets would be a welcome move, although they were divided on its effectiveness.
For the past six years, some 50,000 officials have been convicted of corruption annually. The average size of bribes rose from 2.53 million yuan (HK$2.8 million) in 2007 to 8.84 million yuan last year, according to the Supreme People’s Court.
The debate over whether Beijing should establish a system of disclosure has raged for years, and public pressure has been rising recently.
In 1987, Wang Hanbin , then a legislature leader, said in a speech to parliament that China should learn from other countries. The party and government published related regulations in 1995 and 2001.
Early this year, Premier Wen Jiabao reignited the controversy during his debut Web chat with the public, saying his government was making “active preparation” for officials to declare their assets as part of efforts to promote transparency.
That triggered a nationwide internet campaign calling for the introduction of a system of disclosure.
The official Outlook magazine referred to this in an article on July 27, saying: “There is reason to believe that the Fourth Plenum will meet society’s expectations to come up with these new measures.”
But Professor Gao Xinmin of the Central Party School said its effectiveness could only be “maximised under democratic and scientific governance and the rule of law”. Zhang Ming , a political scientist at Renmin University, said the introduction of democracy and rule of law was the only solution.
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