China's President Hu Jintao warned the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that corruption could cost it the support of the people, in a speech on 1st July, marking 90 years since the party was founded.
He said alienation from the people poses the greatest risk to the CCP, and said efforts to combat corruption must be intensified if the party is to survive.
Hu was speaking to thousands of leaders and party members in Beijing's Great Hall of the People as part of widespread celebrations marking the CCP's anniversary.
Hu said "incompetence" of some members has "separated it [the party] from the people", and that it was important that "the Party imposes discipline on its members.”
“Corruption will cost the party the support and trust of the people” Hu said in his 90-minute speech.
While China's breakneck growth has captured media headlines for the last decade, the country's parallel problem of corruption has also garnered attention, and it is something the party is taking increasingly seriously.
A report by the Central Bank of China from 2008, but which was released in June said that since the mid-1990s, more than US$120 billion had been stolen by some 17,000 party members and employees of state-owned firms, and smuggled out of the country.
Moreover, on top of large instances of corruption, many reports point to the everyday corruption by officials and employees of state-owned enterprises that are a part of working and living in China. In a 2008 survey, Pew found that eight out of 10 Chinese consider party and governmental corruption significant issue.
The government has not been totally complacent on the issue, and on top of the anti corruption rhetoric, regularly declared by Hu and his premier, Wen Jiabao, there have been growing numbers of prosecutions in recent years.
The Atlantic lists just a few of the trials: the vice mayor of Beijing and supervisor for Olympic Construction was fired for taking bribes; the former party boss of Shanghai was sentenced to 18 years for improperly loaning hundreds of millions of dollars from a social security fund to real estate speculators; the head of China's equivalent of the FDA was executed for taking bribes and kickbacks; and the head of China's high speed rail system was fired due to a corruption investigation.
The severity of the sentences is note-worthy, and a number of people have been executed for economic crimes.
On 1st May, China's first foreign anti corruption legislation came into effect, and while the growing investigations and new legislations are certainly a positive step forward, China's opaque political and legal systems means that tackling corruption will require more than words in rule books.
China's rulers, however, have recognised that despite the phenomenal growth and development it has brought the nation, corruption could be the undoing of the CCP.
As Hu said in his speech, “The Party is soberly aware of the gravity and danger of corruption.”
Sources: Asia News, The Atlantic, BBC News, Xinhua
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