HONG KONG -
Chinese president and party chief Hu Jintao has long
called for greater discipline within the Communist
Party; more accountability, transparency, democracy -
and an all-out war on corruption. It won't happen
overnight, and there's a lot of resistance from vested
interests. An amendment to the party constitution would
be required in order to strengthen provincial watchdog
agencies and party disciplinary personnel, but small
steps are being taken and a few pilot projects are
underway.
The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing
recently has been making clarion calls to amend the
party's constitution so that the discipline inspection
committees at the provincial level report directly to
Central Committee of Discipline Inspection (CCDI) in
Beijing, the supreme watchdog agency resurrected in 1979
against increasingly rampant corruption. At this time,
however, a provincial disciplinarian is still
administered by the party committee at the same
provincial level, and his staff is even on the payroll
of relevant provincial governments. If such a sweeping
national proposal passes through intra-party
discussions, it will find its way into the agenda of the
2007 party plenum at the earliest. Still, China experts
warn that the proposal will face stiff opposition from
senior officials in Beijing, who originally ascended
from provincial governments or still possess significant
interests in local governments.
At the heart of
the issue is whether a party functionary in a discipline
unit in the provinces is in any position to criticize or
report his boss for corruption, malfeasance or gross
inefficiency. Without the backing of the Communist
Party's central discipline apparatus in Beijing, and
without reporting directly to Beijing, it could be a
lost cause where provincial officials hold sway, often
unquestioned and unchallenged.
The public focus
has recently turned to the inefficient supervision of
party chiefs, after two major corruption cases were
exposed in north China's Heilongjiang province, an
economically backward region long plagued by many
inefficient, money-losing state-owned enterprises, SOEs.
The two cases ended with the resignation of former
governor Tian Fengshan, who managed to climb the
political ladder to become China's minister of land and
resources in March 2000. Later on, up to five political
heavyweights in the same province got the boot,
including the deputy governor and heads of both the
provincial Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate, or
the equivalent of a state attorney general. Some critics
say the Discipline Inspection Committee in the province
failed to do its job.
But as China experts
explain, a provincial disciplinarian has very little
freedom and many constraints. According to the party
constitution, the office of disciplinarian is under both
the leadership of the CCDI and the party committee at
the same local or provincial level. In practice,
however, the latter local power center turns out to be
the sole significant factor in the "work" of
disciplinary personnel or the agency. Such a situation
has greatly impeded the crackdown on corruption. How
could someone effectively supervise his superiors and
point out the errors of their ways?
Experts
argue that China's rampant corruption is in a large part
due to the unchecked power of provincial leaders, who
maintain absolute control of the resources and the
economy in a given province, where even orders from the
central government to rectify malpractice go by the
board, not to mention the feeble supervision from
subordinate watchdog agencies and personnel. In the
five-year period between October 1997 and September
2002, 98 provincial or ministerial officials were sent
to prison for corruption and malfeasance - probably a
fraction of the real number of wrongdoers. In most
cases, it was the CCDI from Beijing that eventually
stepped in and brought those accountable to justice.
Some say that discipline-inspection committees at the
provincial levels largely remain puppets, and that
China's corruption will not be stopped if Beijing's CCDI
cannot take charge of all of its provincial branches.
In fact, there have already been some
experiments, pilot projects, at the center in Beijing
and in some local governments, with the purpose of
unleashing and empowering the local committees of
discipline inspection. Starting from April, the Beijing
CCDI and the Ministry of Supervision will take charge of
the promotion and evaluation of anti-corruption
officials stationed in central departments, in hopes of
strengthening these officials' independence and keeping
them separate from the influence of relevant departments
that they would likely supervise. There are also similar
projects going on in South China's Hunan province and
the developed special economic zone in the south,
Shenzhen.
At the earliest, if all goes fairly
smoothly, then a sweeping national proposal to expand
the CCDI's reach to the provinces and create fire walls
between the investigators and the investigated will
reach the agenda of the 2007 party plenum. China
experts, however, are very concerned about possible
resistance to amending the party constitution, as some
influential figures in Beijing's upper echelon were
elevated from lower positions and still possess major
personal, collegial, even economic interests in
provincial and local governments. If local
disciplinarians gain the independence they deserve and
endeavor to eradicate corruption and malfeasance, this
would no doubt pose a major threat to some unethical
officials, who will thus make every effort to block the
proposal to amend the party constitution and give
provincial disciplinarians the independence and central
backing they need to do their work.
But
corruption fighters at the frontline welcome the
proposal. One local discipline official told Asia Times
Online, speaking on condition of anonymity, that he and
his colleagues still had some reservations in fully
carrying out their mandates. If they go all out to dig
out the corruption in the local government, they might
have a hard time receiving their wages, which have to be
allocated from local revenue administered by the people
they would try to monitor. Their work is laden with
pressure, as they are frequently required to investigate
their bosses. How rigorously they do so may depend on
the support they receive from the center and their
ability to report directly to the center. The discipline
official also stressed that the morale of local
discipline-inspection committees will remain low if
their independence is not secured soon.
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