China sets five-year plan to check corruption

Beijing – The Communist Party of China (CPC) has vowed to fight corruption and maintain its “high-handed posture” in the next five years.

The CPC Central Committee Wednesday issued a five-year (2013-2017) plan on building a system to punish and prevent corruption, Xinhua reported.

It stated: “If the problems of work styles and corruption are not handled properly, they will critically harm the party, and even lead the party or nation to perish.”

All cases must be investigated and miscreants punished more severely to deter others, the plan said.

The CPC reiterated its pursuit of “tigers” and “flies” and the fight against harmful work styles, the hotbeds for corruption. The party’s work style campaign is fundamental to the fight against corruption, according to the document.

“Corruption is still common. The soil that nourishes corruption still exists. The situation remains critical and complicated,” the plan said.

Within five years, “public satisfaction should be achieved,” according to the plan.

Particular efforts should be made to deal with cases involving power-for-money deals, judicial corruption, major violations of political discipline, mass incidents and major accidents which happened because of corrupt officials, commercial bribery, and official selection, the plan said.

“Top-level design is a must if we want the anti-corruption drive to be efficient,” said Jiang Ming’an, professor with the Peking University’s Law School.

The CPC has been severe on corruption, with some 108,000 officials punished in the first nine months of this year.