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3 China's flawed fight against
corruption By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
directly in all provinces of the
country. In fact, Beijing has already sent Ye
Qingchun, a senior CCDI official, to head the
party's Henan Provincial CDI, and Jin Daoming,
another senior CCDI official, to head the Shanxi
provincial anti-graft watchdog.
The CCP
power center has also made another move to make
the function of a provincial CDI more independent
of the provincial party committee. It has decided
that the head of the anti-graft
watchdog will no longer, as
at present, concurrently take the post as a deputy
secretary of the provincial party committee. In
this way, he will not take part in the day-to-day
operations of the party committee, so he would be
in a better position to carry out his mission.
Beijing may hope to turn the relationship
between the regional anti-graft watchdog and party
committee into something similar to that between a
local customs branch and the local party and
government authorities, so that they can check on
each other.
Analysts say that the
restructuring is likely to be formally endorsed at
the party's 17th National Congress next year to
become an institutionalized system.
Public supervision more
important There is no doubt that this
restructuring of the Communist Party's anti-graft
system is an improvement, as it is aimed at
establishing a more independent mechanism for
supervision.
It is certainly an effective
way to check rampant regional protectionism and
nepotism for Beijing to send its own people to
head the local anti-graft commissions. This is a
check on the absolute power of the "local kings".
For local officials this could be a restraint -
knowing these "Beijing men" have direct access to
the power center, they had better behave
themselves. On the positive side, this may help
reduce the risks of their becoming corrupt.
Over past years, many have pointed out
that lack of an independent, powerful anti-graft
body like Hong Kong's Independent Commission
Against Corruption (ICAC) is a major cause of the
ineffectiveness in mainland China's crackdown on
official corruption. And they have rightly
proposed that the mainland set up its own ICAC.
The CCP power center's current
restructuring of its anti-graft system has boosted
expectations that the party's 17th Congress would
put all provincial commissions for disciplinary
inspection directly under the CCDI, totally
independent of the local party committees. In this
way, CCDI could function like Hong Kong's ICAC
with all regional commissions as its branches.
However, this has yet to be officially confirmed.
But even with an independent
anti-corruption institution, it might not be
enough to wipe out corruption completely among
officials. Take Hong Kong for example; in addition
to the ICAC, public and media supervision play a
crucial role in combating corruption. And in a
sense, media supervision carries greater deterrent
power. In an analogy, the ICAC and free media are
the two hands of a combat-ready fighter.
As it may be impossible to eradicate
corruption completely, and if President Hu wants
at least to minimize official corruption, he must
consider letting the media play a role in this
arduous fight. Greater freedom of the press would
allow the public to participate in the supervision
of officials by putting them under a microscope.
But until now there is no sign that the CCP is
ready to embrace freedom of the press.
For
today's China, where official corruption is so
rampant, it is essential to have an independent
anti-graft institution. However, the current plan
of the CCP power center is no more than trying to
establish an independent institution within the
party itself. As such it may still be beyond
public supervision. Hence there is still a
pitfall. Without public supervision through free
media, who will watch the behavior of the
anti-graft institution? If an anti-graft watchdog
itself becomes corrupt, who will deal with it?
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