How China fights graft
Natalia Soebagjo, Beijing
In China, politicians from all over the country have gathered together in Beijing for the annual session of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature. Corruption is one of the important topics of discussion because the Chinese Communist Party's top leadership realizes the impact of corruption on the Party's credibility and also on maintaining social stability as China aggressively pursues its economic reform policy.
In one sense, China lags behind Indonesia because she has yet to enact an anticorruption law but even without such a law, tangible and visible steps are being taken to snare corruptors.
In his report to the National People's Congress, Jia Chunwang, China's procurator-general of the Supreme People's Court, highlighted the thousands of officials investigated, charged and sentenced. Last year, as many as 43,757 government officials were investigated for job-related crimes involving corruption, bribe- taking and embezzlement of public funds. More than 8,700 were investigated for dereliction of duties and abuse of power. Some of those who have been convicted include provincial and ministerial officials with penalties ranging from life imprisonment to 11 years behind bars.
Within the legal system itself, prosecutors and judges were also punished for graft. Attempts will also be made to improve the effectiveness of grass-roots courts and prosecutors as their decisions directly affect the lives of people. Judges all over the country need to be better supervised and better trained as well as better disciplined.
The Chinese Communist Party too is trying to clean up its act. In December last year the party issued guidelines to track down corrupt party officials and those running state-owned enterprises. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, for instance, has started to scrutinize the travel plans and daily expenses of officials as well as the movements of their relatives, including their job applications and their plans to study abroad.
Apparently, a popular method for absconding with their ill- gotten gains is to first send their wives and children abroad, then send them the money to buy houses and register companies, and when they are about to be caught, the corruptors flee to follow their families and their wealth safely tucked away overseas. Once abroad, there are numerous ways to launder the money.
Lu Wanli was not so fortunate. As a former director of the Communication Department of Guizhou province, he embezzled about 55 million yuan (US$ 6.6 million), and fled to Fiji, too frightened to visit his family who were in Australia. Three months after fleeing, he was caught and repatriated to China. In May last year he was sentenced to death.
China is trying to strengthen regional and international cooperation in cracking down transnational corruption cases and to catch more of the hundreds who fled abroad. So far, at least 230 criminals have been caught.
Admittedly, the high figures of those investigated are just a fraction of the number of officials in China but nevertheless it is an encouraging sign for the public, especially when prosecutors try to investigate crimes that attract the most public attention, namely those related to corruption in infrastructure construction and housing.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, admits that "the anticorruption fight is still an arduous task," but one that has to be undertaken. The legal infrastructure to fight corruption has to be built because China's legal system does not yet have a clear definition of corruption.
According to China's former criminal law, corruption cases are considered as crimes without victims and therefore suspects can only be dealt with through penal lawsuits, firing them from their positions of power, and by confiscating the stolen money. If the suspects flee and cannot be arrested, the stolen public money cannot be retrieved.
Therefore even if China were to join the UN Anticorruption Treaty, it would still be difficult to nab the corruptors without first taking care of the legal loopholes within the Chinese legal system.
It is therefore not enough to just have good intentions in trying to curb corruption. Corruption has to be tackled in a comprehensive manner, covering all bases. Most importantly, it must be tackled with a clear head, without emotion and displays of indignation or self-righteousness.
Meanwhile in Indonesia, we read so much and talk so much about corruption yet that is about all we do: Passively lament. Either nothing concrete seems to be done about it or not enough is being done.
The writer is a lecturer of Chinese Studies at the University of Indonesia.