No politics behind corruption drive
Severest rot rooted out first: official
China’s sweeping campaign against corruption is not politically biased but only aims to protect the interests of the nation and the people, a leading anti-graft official said on Friday.
Wu Yuliang, deputy chief of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China (CPC), told a press conference that speculation that China’s anti-graft campaign was being used to strike political opponents had ulterior motives.
“Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China has launched a sweeping anti-graft campaign and severely cracked down on ‘tigers’ and ‘flies.’ We have been rooting out ‘rotten trees,’ healing ‘sick trees’ and protecting the ‘forest.’ When rooting out rotten trees,
one has to start with the most rotten ones. If it was accused of being selective, I would rather say it is the way we work,” said Wu.
In the past, some people attacked the country’s inaction in the face of corruption. But now when the country has tightened its efforts in fighting against corruption, some people said it’s done selectively, Wu added. “I’m afraid these accusations may have ulterior purposes.”
Flies and tigers
Wu’s comments came after the closure of the four-day Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, a key meeting to further confirm the authority of the CPC Central Committee and renew the country’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign.
The meeting called on all its members to “closely unite around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core” and passed a regulation on intra-Party political life under the new situation as well as amendments to an intra-Party supervision regulation.
Corrupt officials ranging from low-level “flies” to high-ranking “tigers” have been ousted since late 2012, when the Chinese leadership vowed an all-out war on corruption.
Dozens of senior officials have been investigated or sent to prison thanks to the ongoing anti-graft campaign, including former national security chief Zhou Yongkang, former Chongqing Municipality Party chief Bo Xilai and former deputy head of China’s national political advisory body Ling Jihua.
The Party pursues wholehearted benefits for the people, and the antigraft campaign is totally for the sake of the interests of the people and the country, Wu said.
“Over the years, some Western media have been defaming the Party by claiming the anti-corruption campaign was a tool for political infighting. These claims were totally out of ulterior motives,” Su Wei, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Chongqing Committee, told the Global Times, adding that some officials formed cliques out of economic interests and the campaign aims at cracking down on these people.
Wu’s opinion was echoed by Li Danyang, a research fellow at the School of Public Administration of Guangzhou-based Jinan University, who said that the claims were a conspiracy theory and four years of the anti-graft campaign has obviously punished many corrupt officials and deterred many others from daring to be corrupt, creating a huge social impact.
Before the Sixth Plenary Session, an eight-part television documentary about the anti-corruption drive, Always on the Road, created a stir among the public. Former Yunnan Province Party chief Bai Enpei and deputy Sichuan Province Party chief Li Chuncheng appeared and spoke during the documentary. It also shows footage from the trials of some former senior officials, including Bo and Zhou.
No hidden rule
Meanwhile, questions about some public skepticism over sentences appearing too light for the worst offenders were also raised at Friday’s press conference.
Some people claimed that many “tigers” who fell from power were sentenced to death with reprieve or life imprisonment, leaving an impression that it seemed to be a “hidden rule” for corrupt officials to “escape from the death penalty.”
Wu said disciplinary authorities launched their investigations into corrupt officials in accordance with Party regulations and imposed Party punishment on the offenders, while the judicial organs are in charge of their measurement of the penalty.
Nearly 80 senior officials have been investigated and sentenced since 2012. However, none have been executed, according to media reports. In the last two weeks, three corrupt officials, who raked in record amounts of money, were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.
Experts pointed out that the prudent application of the death penalty is aimed at safeguarding the right to life, which is in line with international practice.
It does not matter if we kill the corrupt officials or not, said Su, noting that punishing them with laws and putting them in prison has already made corrupt officials feel “to live is no better than to die.”
“Moreover, the death penalty can not necessarily curb corruption,” said Li.
During the meeting, it was announced that the 19th CPC National Congress – a major event in the political life of the Party and the State –- will be held in Beijing during the second half of 2017. But Wu and other officials said they had no further information about the appointments of new leaders.