The multiple angles the outside world adopts to analyze and speculate on the Communist Party of China’s anti-graft campaign, ranging from its motives and objectives to its effects and direction, to some extent, reflect the campaign’s multifaceted and multipronged characteristics as a significant endeavor for the Party, the country and society.
Given this, and that the 20th National Congress of the Party will be held in the second half of this year, the wide attention cast on the ongoing sixth plenary session of the Party’s top discipline department is understandable.
During the session, which is being held in Beijing from Tuesday to Thursday, the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection is expected to not only summarize its performance over the previous year, but also unveil this year’s work plan that will also see the formation of the next commission after the congress.
In the speech he made at the opening of the plenum, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said the anti-graft campaign is a protracted war in which there must be zero-tolerance, as all hidden dangers must be rooted out. Just as the CCDI’s brief on its work over the past year indicates, its anti-corruption efforts are in step with the development of the Party and the country and they penetrate into all areas where power might seek rent.
From January to September last year, discipline inspection and supervision organs nationwide registered 470,000 cases and punished 414,000 people, including 22 officials at the provincial or ministerial level and 2,058 officials at the municipal or bureau level. And from January to November, a total of 1,114 corrupt officials were brought back from the countries to which they had fled, with 16.14 billion yuan ($2.54 billion) connected with their cases recovered, 5.6 times that of the same period the year before.
Moreover, regular discipline inspections for all departments at various levels that are funded with taxpayers’ money and State-owned enterprises have become normalized since 2012. These efforts, along with the construction of an anti-graft legal system, are forming an institutional cage of power that is evolving from one intended to make the holders of power dare not capitalize on the power in their hands to one in which they cannot, with the ultimate goal being that none wants to do so.
The fight against corruption, which remains a chronic disease in developed and developing countries alike, is comparable to sailing against the current. But while it is an arduous endeavor, it is one whose worth is evident in the trust, honesty, unity and efficiency it garners.
The anti-corruption cause played an important role in enabling the country to realize its first centenary goal of building a moderately well-off society in all respects on schedule last year. More important, the Party has reinvigorated itself through constant self-reform.
As Xi said, the Party has no self-interest, nor does it represent any interest groups. That should be ingrained in all Party members’ hearts, prompting them to always put the people first in the efforts to realize the second centenary goal of building a modern socialist country by the middle of this century.
Editorial, China Daily
