By Li Fangchao (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-14 07:31

The setting up of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention (NBCP) signifies the opening of a new front that can "nip corruption in the bud". The newly appointed Minister of Supervision Ma Wen will head the bureau, which will be under the direct control of the State Council, the country's cabinet.

The bureau will draw up plans and map out policies to prevent corruption and orchestrate all the preventive resources.

The setting up of NBCP shifts the focus from punishment to prevention, say experts, and it's an improvement in the country's anti-corruption strategy. "Since the country has entered a period where corruption cases are reported frequently it's only pragmatic to concentrate the strengths and resources in one body," says Peking University professor Li Chengyan. "It's necessary to have such a high-level organ that can orchestrate and regulate all corruption prevention forces in the country."

At present, almost all ministerial level administrations have offices and staff to prevent corruption. "China has a lot of supervision forces and complicated anti-corruption bodies," Li says. "The bureau will help reduce the repetition of work and coordinate with all of them to reach common grounds."

"The strategic change (from punishment to prevention) means the central government is determined to put in more efforts on education and institutional reforms, and seek breakthroughs in its anti-corruption drive by improving the mechanism," Li says.

Tsinghua University professor Ren Jianming thinks it's imperative that a "comparatively independent institution" will improve corruption prevention policies. "It will be much better (because) sometimes certain departments' proposals are laced with vested interests."

The NBCP will serve as a guide for enterprises and social groups in their efforts to prevent corruption. Li says corruption is indeed a big problem in the burgeoning market economy that is China. "The huge number of State-owned enterprises under government supervision, too, should be included in the system."

Ren says: "It's an internationally acknowledged fact that corruption is eating into more and more social sectors with practices such as commercial bribery in the business world and cheating in academic fields."

Vice-Minister of Supervision, and also of NBCP, Qu Wanxiang says the new bureau will immediately begin research into some key fields where corruption is believed to be rampant. "We will lose no time in identifying the source of corruption in areas that concern the public the most, such as construction, medical and educational sectors."

"Our work is to work out effective measures to eradicate corruption from the source in these fields," says Qu.

But experts doubt whether the 30-member bureau will live up to people's expectations. Ren worries "whether the bureau will have enough talent and professionals to detect corruption at source in so many complicated fields".

"It will become a beautiful but useless vase if it's made up of all kinds of officials and staff who can only do some administrative things instead of the vital research work." Hence Ren suggests the bureau introduce "outside brains" by inviting some professionals from certain fields to overcome the difficulty.

A few experts are also worried that the State-level bureau will prompt local governments to form similar organizations, resulting in over-swollen staff and more supervisory cost.

Though NBCP chief Ma Wen brushes aside such worries saying that at present local governments don't have any intention to set up similar organizations, Li feels local governments would do so, but maybe under a different name.

"We expect to see all anti-corruption resources being gradually incorporated into one bureau, which will be more independent and effective," Li says.

Corroborating him, Ren says: "The miscellaneous anti-corruption regulations and laws and numerous anti-corruption organizations that often overlap each others' in functions have not been effective in curbing corruption."

"We expect to see an authority that can effectively reduce corruption," says Ren. To prevent the new bureau from becoming a beautiful but useless vase an accountability system has to be put in place.

"Let's keep a watch on the areas from where corruption cases are reported frequently," he says. "If corruption cases in such fields are reduced greatly, the bureau would have done its job. If not, we should hunt out those responsible (for the failure)."