Five years have passed since President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign commenced. In this time the Party’s anti-corruption body has brought over a million people to account for violating either laws or Party disciplinary regulations. And over a million cases of corruption have been filed. This number has shown a clear increase year on year. As of now, 109 middle or high ranking cadres have been investigated, with almost two thirds of them at or above the provincial level. Those under investigation are from various sectors of the country, including judicial departments, finance, environmental protection, as well as sports. A survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics last year showed that more than 90% of the Chinese public say they are satisfied, or relatively satisfied, with the country’s achievements in anti-corruption, an increase from 75% in 2012. And besides just hunting down corrupt officials, many are calling to institutionalize the anti-corruption fight. 120 former officials at or above vice-ministerial level were investigated for graft in the past five years, compared with 30 in the previous five years, according to the top procuratorate. A total of 254,419 officials were investigated for duty-related offenses, such as bribery or dereliction of duty, from 2013 to 2017, up by 16.4 percent compared with 2008 to 2012.The court system has concluded graft cases involving 101 former officials at or above vice-ministerial level in the past five years. Corruption at lower levels also has been resolutely targeted, as 62,715 corrupt grassroots officials were charged in the past five years, such as those in charge of local agriculture, housing demolitions, social welfare and poverty alleviation.
Eight-Point Regulations was published. It’s a policy that has had an almost immediate effect on the way Chinese officials work. In the past, if you were a businessman trying to get a contract for a construction project for example, you might have had to drink a lot at extravagant banquets with Chinese officials. Such banquets would either be paid by you or by public money. But the “Eight-Point Regulations” brought an immediate halt to such extravagance — if not criminal acts — and even led to bankruptcy of many high-end restaurants in China and left some alcohol businesses struggling to sustain.
Another impressive effort under President Xi’s leadership is establishing a mechanism to capture corrupt officials who have already fled overseas. It’s been dubbed as Operation Sky Net. Authorities say that since 2014, the Operation has captured nearly 2,000 fugitives in 70 countries, and recovered over $11 billion. The Operation has cooperated with Interpol and listed the 100 most wanted fugitives, with one third having been brought to justice.
Although the campaign mainly focuses on government officials, it also has profound social impacts. Due to anti- corruption policy, now we have a cleaner government and officials will set good examples. Anti-corruption is the main thing of the time and history. Our communist party has made strict policies which are like sword to ensure that government officials “dare not” and “can not” corrupt. The construction of clean government system is a key factor in the modernization of national governance system and governance capability.
Today, we advocate the political conscience of leading cadres at all levels, including his political integrity. Officials now have more time to communicate with people and help people solve problems instead of having more time for entertainment. This will help improve government efficiency and people will be more satisfied so that we will have a stable society. People have more confidence and trust in government.
Gaining people’s trust and confidence is the key to make the country better. Previous corruption cases show that some village officials in impoverished regions embezzled poverty alleviation funds and/or materials. But now it is being greatly improved and people’s livelihood has been improved greatly. Report shows that stronger anti-corruption efforts make firms more likely to acquire external funds, mainly the long-term debt. Moreover, it shows that firms located in provinces with stronger anti-corruption efforts invest significantly more of their newly acquired funds in R&D and generate more patents. This positive and statistically significant effect almost comes entirely from the current massive anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping since 2013.