HK and Macau Affairs Office to be investigated

The mainland’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) warned late on Wednesday night that it is about to begin an investigation into the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, as part of its four-year-long anti-graft campaign.
Also to be investigated is a number of National People Congress’ agencies, including the Basic Law committees for Hong Kong and Macau and 29 other ministerial-level party and government organs.
CCDI head Wang Qishan, who unveiled the inspection plans on Wednesday, said that they would be an effective way to reduce corruption in the government bodies.
“Inspections are an important way to carry out internal-party supervision,” he said, as cited by South China Morning Post. Inspections will “examine whether the party’s guidelines and policies have been truthfully enforced in a bid to resolutely safeguard the party’s central leadership,” added Wang.
The latest anti-corruption crackdown orchestrated by the central government is the 10th since president Xi Jinping assumed office in 2012. It comes after a mainland official in charge of internal control at the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office was found to have breached such controls himself.
The crackdown “signals that the central government is serious about cracking down on corruption, and no department is spared,” Hong Kong-based commentator Johnny Lau told SCMP. “In the past, they might not highlight the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office or the Basic Law Committee in their propaganda […] but that does not mean the two departments were corruption-free [sic].