Government and Policy

Public set to get larger role in the battle to beat corruption

By Yan Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-02-28 07:57

BEIJING - The country's anti-corruption campaign will take aim this year at leading officials suspected of graft, dereliction of duty and abuse of power, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday during his online chat with netizens.

He said the battle against graft will be "a primary task" for the government and added that China wants to build a system that gives the public more of a supervisory role.

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Wen made the remarks after he was asked about the recent removal of Liu Zhijun, the former minister of railways, for an alleged "severe violation of discipline".

Liu's sacking reflected the resolution of the Party and the government to severely punish officials, regardless of their identities or rank, if they are found to have violated the rules of discipline or law, Wen said.

Liu was removed from the post of Party chief of the Ministry of Railways on Feb 12 and dismissed as minister of railways on Friday.

Wen also said the central authorities should advance the mechanism to rein in the excessive powers of some leading officials.

"A government will not be corrupt if it is under the people's supervision," he said, adding that government decisions, budgets and subsequent achievements should all be made public.

In the long term, the premier said, the assets of officials should also be made available to the public.

"The first step we're taking now is to require officials to report their personal income, assets and their family members' employment conditions (to the Party)," he added.

However, Lin Zhe, a professor of anti-corruption at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said it will be a long time before officials' assets are in the public arena.

The current asset-reporting system in China is not the same as the asset-revealing practices implemented in Western countries, she said.

In China, the public has no way at the moment to learn about officials' personal assets because those details are only reported to the Party and not the public.

Lin recommended that the government could first try revealing officials' assets among officials of the same rank. The next step could be to expand the circle of people who have access to such details.