Which way will supervision reform move?

Themethod has been effective, but it has two problems.

First, most of the Party members are honest and principled; only a few are corrupt. So it will be a big waste of anti-corruption resources if disciplinary committees target only Party members. And second, some officials who are not Party members, too, could abuse their powers. So it is equally important to prevent non-Party-member officials from falling to the lure of corruption. However, the Party disciplinary bodies can hardly do anything against them because they are not Party members.

Corruption happens when people who wield power are not supervised or monitored, no matter whether they are Party members or not. Therefore, the disciplinary supervision bodies should oversee all civil servants, rather than just Party members.

The existing government supervision organizations have tried to plug the loopholes by also monitoring officials who are not Party members. But in the past they were not given enough power and their duties were rather limited. As a result, most of the corruption cases involving nonParty members were detected by procurators rather than government supervision bodies in the past.

That’s why the reform is necessary. The anti-corruption committees established by the provincial-level people’s congresses have more power and their official level is the same as that of the judiciary.

More importantly, the newcommittees have the power to supervise all public servants, as is clearly stated in the pilot scheme. All employees in government agencies, public funded institutions and Stateowned enterprises are subject to the supervision of the newcommittees.

And the fact that the new committees will work with Party disciplinary committees at the same level shows the reform is aimed at making fight against corruption more efficient. Since many officials are Party members, both committees are authorized to supervise them; and by working together, they will avoid repetitive work and cannot shirk responsibilities.

Besides, there are multiple departments that can supervise officials, and their efforts need to be integrated under the leadership of the Party, so as to more efficiently combat corruption. Of course, the design needs to stand the test of practice and time, and that’s why the program is on a dry run in Beijing, Shanxi and Zhejiang. Hopefully, it will provide precious experience to strengthen the future fight against corruption. The author is a professor of anticorruption studies at the Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University.