New law on grassroots graft

BEIJING - To fight corruption at the grassroots, China's central authorities have issued the first regulations forbidding township and village officials from appropriation of land, embezzlement and vote buying.

The regulation applies to millions of officials at the lowest administrative level in China's 600,000 villages. Experts said many such officials are key decision-makers but have been under "lax supervision" and have "poor understanding" of the law.

The general offices of the Central Party Committee and the State Council published the regulations on village officials' code of duty recently.