Countermeasures
The CCP has tried a variety of anti-corruption measures, constructing a variety of laws and agencies in an attempt to stamp out corruption.
In 2004, the CCP devised strict regulations on officials assuming posts in business and enterprise. The Central Committee for Discipline Inspection and the Central Organization Department issued a joint circular instructing Party committees, governments and related departments at all levels not to give approval for Party and government officials to take up concurrent posts in enterprises.
Such measures are largely ineffective, however, due to the insufficient enforcement of the relevant laws. Further, because the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection largely operates in secrecy, it is unclear to researchers how allegedly corrupt officials are disciplined and punished. The odds for a corrupt official to end up in prison are less than three percent, making corruption a high-return, low risk activity. This leniency of punishment has been one of the main reasons corruption is such a serious problem in China.
While corruption has grown in scope and complexity, anti-corruption policies, on the other hand, have not changed much. Communist-style mass campaigns with anti-corruption slogans, moral exhortations, and prominently displayed miscreants, are still a key part of official policy, much as they were in the 1950s.
In 2009, according to internal Party reports, there were 106,000 officials found guilty of corruption, an increase of 2.5 percent on the previous year. The number of officials caught embezzling more than one million yuan (US$146,000) went up by 19 percent over the year. With no independent oversight like NGOs or free media, corruption has flourished.
These efforts are punctuated by an occasional harsh prison term for major offenders, or even executions. But rules and values for business and bureaucratic conduct are in flux, sometimes contradictory, and “deeply politicized.” In many countries systematic anti-corruption measures include independent trade and professional associations, which help limit corruption by promulgating codes of ethics and imposing quick penalties, watchdog groups like NGOs, and a free media. In China, these measures do not exist as a result of the CCP’s means of rule.
Thus, while Party disciplinary organs and prosecutorial agencies produce impressive statistics on corruption complaints received from the public, few citizens or observers believe corruption is being systematically addressed.
There are also limits to how far anti-corruption measures will go. For example, when Hu Jintao's son was implicated in a corruption investigation in Namibia, Chinese Internet portals and Party-controlled media were ordered not to report on it.
At the same time, local leaders engage in "corruption protectionism," as coined by the head of the Hunan provincial Party Discipline Inspection Commission; apparatchiks thwart corruption investigations against the staff of their own agencies, allowing them to escape punishment. In some cases this has impelled high-ranking officials to form special investigative groups with approval from the central government to avoid local resistance and enforce cooperation. However, since in China vertical and horizontal leadership structures often run at odds with one another, CCP anti-corruption agencies find it hard to investigate graft at the lower levels. The goal of effectively controlling corruption thus remains elusive to the ruling Party.
Read more about this topic: Corruption In China