Which way will supervision reform move?

China launched a pilot program for supervision reform in Beijing, Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces in November with the aim of setting up anti-corruption bodies established by provincial-level people's congresses that will jointly work with Party disciplinary committees at the same level.

The effort to combine different tools and institutions to combat corruption is a welcome move as it will not only put more officials under supervision but also strengthen supervision, making the fight against corruption more efficient and authoritative. The pilot program will move from "strictly regulating Party members" to "strictly regulating all civil servants", including non-Party members.

For long, Party disciplinary committees at various levels have played the key role in preventing and curbing corruption, by mainly educating Party members to stay clean and launching investigations against those suspected of corruption. The method has been effective, but it has two problems.