Hu: Anti-corruption job remains daunting

Hu Jintao delivers a speech.
China's ruling Communist Party has vowed to clamp down harder on official corruption, particularly power-money trading, in its strengthened bid to build up much cleaner and fairer governance in the country.

Party chief and China's President Hu Jintao told a national anti-graft conference in Beijing Monday that the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Central Government will wage the campaign against corruption with even greater determination and more forceful measures as "the situation remains grave".

A recent survey by this website showed up to 72 percent of the people in China deem official corruption as their No 2 issue of serious concern, just after the skyrocketing and unaffordable housing prices in the cities.

Hu admitted that conspicuous problems remained in the fight against corruption and efforts to build a clean government. He said the job to combat corruption is daunting.

Hu said that misconduct during this year's selection and appointment of new leaders of all local-level Party committees would be prevented and rectified. He made the remark in a speech to a 3-day plenary session of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the Party's top anti-corruption body. In 2001, local Party committees in China are scheduled to select and appoint new leaders at the levels of township, county and city.

The president said "all work should be done with the fundamental interests of the majority of the people as the core concern". Hu pledged to "combat graft strictly and punish corrupt officials severely" so as to win trust from the people.

The ruling party apparently has noticed that the Chinese people remain unsatisfied with power-money trading, bribery and embezzlement among some of the officials. In 2010, up to six ministry-level officials were found taking bribes and brought to justice.

Hu said problems that seriously harm the public interest and spark the most public complaints should be addressed to ensure that "justice is done".

Hu called for stronger supervision and monitoring of the implementation of major central government and Party policies and the promotion of a corruption-free work ethic among all Party officials.

He also called for reinforced efforts to build a system to prevent and punish corruption.

"More efforts should be made to investigate graft in key industries and key posts," he said, stressing supervision of procedures concerning the promotion of local officials to prevent abuse of power or other corrupt conduct.

The ruling Communist Party of China considers anti-corruption work an important part of China's development in the period of the 12th Five-Year-Plan (2011-15) and crucial for the lifeline and development of the Party, which will celebrate its 90-year-old anniversary this year.

People's Daily Online