Government and Policy

Govt sets new targets in anti-corruption campaign

By Yan Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-29 07:51

BEIJING - Next year China will launch a crackdown against a new form of corruption -- excessive celebrations, seminars and forums organized by officials -- and will tighten the management of government vehicles, an official statement said on Tuesday.

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the country's central leadership, heard a report on this year's anti-corruption and promotion-of-clean-governance work at a meeting on Tuesday.

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President Hu Jintao, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting at which the leaders also considered anti-corruption arrangements for 2011.

Despite remarkable achievements in promoting clean governance this year, the anti-corruption campaign still faces severe challenges, a statement released after the meeting said.

Party committees, governments and discipline authorities at all levels must address both the symptoms and the root causes of corruption next year, and employ punishment and, particularly, prevention, it said.

The meeting singled out the excessive celebrations, seminars and forums along with the overuse of official vehicles as the conspicuous problems that it said had produced strong objections from the public.

Experts said that the problems in recent years of excessive celebrations, seminars and forums constituted a new form of corruption.

"Many large forums, most of little meaning, use government funds directly or indirectly," said Zhu Lijia, a professor researching corruption issues at the Chinese Academy of Governance.

Cao Yin and Xinhua contributed to this story.