From the China Elections and Governance website:
These days it does not need a pundit to tell us that corruption, if not controlled, is a serious matter endangering China’s stability and long-term economic development. Barely a day goes by without hearing a corruption scandal erupting here or there. All told, the Chinese Communist Party in 2005 had to expel 11,071 members for corruption and bribe-taking and refer 7,279 members to judicial authorities for criminal investigation. Auditor-General Li Jinhua recently reported that 48 central government departments and 274 affiliated units had misappropriated 5.51 billion yuan of public money last year, with offences ranging from fabricating expenditures to unauthorized spending of State funds for staff and others.
Now, the new anticorruption campaign has led to the sacking of Chen Liangyu, the Shanghai boss and member of the Politburo implicated in the misuse of more than 3 billion yuan from the Shanghai social security fund and other “serious discipline violations.” Whatever their private motives, President Hu Jintao and the Central Committee should deserve some credits for their political commitment and skills in making this happen. However, the whole “Chen Liangyu incident” itself has also revealed the weakness of China’s political system and thus raised a lot of issues in the country’s anti-corruption bid and the building of a clean party and government. [Full text]
