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UPDATED: September-27-2007 NO.40 OCT.3, 2007
Bribe-busting Bureau Formed
China's creation of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention demonstrates a desire to stop the rising tide of scandal
By FENG JIANHUA

Recent years have seen the image of the Chinese Government tarnished by corrupt officials who have used their positions to amass wealth, aid mistresses and break the law. But a new agency, with the sole purpose of cracking corruption, could help to clean things up.

After a four-year feasibility study, the National Bureau for Corruption Prevention (NBCP) was launched on September 13 under the supervision of the State Council. The establishment of this high-profile bureau has lifted public hope for more effective anti-graft measures.

"The founding of the NBCP is a significant step in the government's corruption prevention drive, which will help to form an anti-corruption network in society," said Ma Wen, the organization's head and also Minister of Supervision. She said the new agency will focus on monitoring the use of power and preventing its abuse.

New stage in anti-graft cause

The experience of other countries has taught that breaking corruption among government officials requires not only the prosecution of offenders but also an emphasis on education. China's anti-corruption cause has followed this track. Since the beginning of the 1980s, China's anti-corruption work has been focused on investigating corruption scandals that involve large amounts of money and punishing corrupt officials.

According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a total of 78,980 Party members were punished for violating Party disciplines in 2006, of whom 3,530 were handed over to judicial organs for further investigation.

Although 78,980 Party members account for a small proportion of the total Party population of over 72 million, they have significantly damaged public interests, according to anti-corruption experts. Any delay in putting into place a corruption education and prevention scheme will result in increasing pressure on judicial departments caused by rising corruption cases and a swelling dissatisfaction among the public.

Wang Limin, Deputy Director of the Bureau against Graft and Bribery under the Supreme People's Procuratorate, said as reforms progress, a worrisome new trend in anti-corruption efforts is that more officials are taking advantage of system loopholes to find a legal shroud for their corruption.

"If we only focus on investigating and punishing corruption crimes, it might work for a while, but we will never wipe out corruption as more cases will pop up. This scenario will harm the image of our Party and government and consume our resources for anti-corruption work," said Yan Qunli, an official from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC. He suggested that some preventive measures must to be taken to stop corruption occurring in the first place.

As a matter of fact, the Chinese Government started to shift the focus of anti-corruption work from punishment to prevention as early as 2000. Professor Ren Jianming of the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, believes that the first significant strategy reflecting this change was an outline of corruption preventive measures launched in 2005. This became the first official document to give equal importance to punishment and prevention in fighting corruption.

Meanwhile, state leaders have emphasized on various occasions in recent years the importance of establishing comprehensive and all-around monitoring of power, which is "a key measure of preventing corruption." A series of regulations have been promulgated, including the high-profile Regulations of Internal Supervision of the CPC published at the end of 2003. The CPC internal supervision regulations for the first time put the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, the Party's top decision-making body, under regular supervision. The punishment of Chen Liangyu, a former member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Party chief of Shanghai, who was sacked for his involvement in a social security fund scandal, the highest ranking official charged with corruption in recent years, was attributed to this new level of supervision

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