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Precautions against Corruption Deployed in China's Western Development
Participants in a series of anti-corruption meetings held by the procuratorate, political and law departments in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were urged to optimize the legal system in China's ambitious move of developing the vast western region.
Economists said the vast western region is comparatively not reflecting the high standards used in other regions in the country, which would mean that officials are more likely to be motivated by economic interests to get involved in corruption.
Lu Bing, the vice secretary of the Regional Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, said that some officials were found to hold the banner of "Developing the West" while at the same time being involved in fraudulent activities involving credit cards, foreign exchange, tax invasion or abusing their power for profits.
The procuratorate department in Guangxi investigated some 500 of such corruption cases last year.
President Jiang Zemin has recently emphasized the importance of building the legal system during the economic development in the western region.
Experts here pointed out some major arenas, which are possible breeding grounds for corruption, including construction, procurement, transfer of land-use rights of gigantic infrastructure projects and state property trading. They urged transparency in the sectors through public bidding. At the initial stage of development in the western region, infrastructure projects budgeted by the Central and regional governments are usually counted by millions or billions of money, the legal experts said. Corruption is virtually inevitable in these projects, if there are not effective tendering, supervision and appraisal systems.
They suggested that the government should nurture notarization businesses, and the development of law offices and grassroots legal service institutions or intermediate agencies in the western region in the build-up of a sound legal environment.
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