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Chinese officials warned not to hide assets or business ties as part of ongoing anti-corruption drive
- A meeting of the Politburo last month told officials they must be ‘honest and open’ when reporting their personal financial situation
- Officials have said they must also disclose information about their families and travel movements as part of the self-declaration process
Published: 12:00pm, 23 Apr, 2023
China has moved to tighten the rules on declaring personal assets and business connections for officials as part of the ongoing battle against corruption.
Tens of thousands of officials have been purged and prosecuted for corruption since Xi Jinping became the party boss in 2012, including dozens who were in the upper echelon of the ruling party, and going after the “big tigers” has helped provide a warning to others.
Late last month Xi reinforced the message at a Politburo meeting, which agreed to tighten the reporting system, saying senior cadres must “honestly and faithfully” report their personal details to the party.
“Senior cadres … must be honest and open to the party in reporting your personal details, and take the initiative in accepting scrutiny,” a statement issued after the meeting said. “Cadres who are in leading positions should take the lead and set examples for others.”
“These improvements of the reporting system … have great significance to how we can perfect the self revolution and governance of our party,” it added.
Getting rid of corruption among the country’s political elites is easier said than done, especially since Xi has made clear that China will not follow the Western path, where robust democratic institutions, an independent judiciary and a free press have all been credited with deterring corrupt behaviour.
Xi, instead has emphasised that the Chinese Communist Party must find its own clean governance formula.
The reporting system, which requires cadres to voluntarily report information such as personal income or travel records, was introduced in 2010. Initially it was not taken seriously, but in 2017 the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party’s top corruption-busting body, began making large-scale random checks of the filings.
Currently, only officials who are of deputy division director ranking or above – known as fu chu ji in Chinese or above – are required to submit the filings. Those who are caught concealing information may face penalties such as being denied promotion.
One official in the southern province of Guangdong, who requested anonymity due to sensitivity of the matter, said he wrestled with the 16-page filing early this year, which includes questions about marital status, possession of foreign passports, and how frequently he travelled outside the country.
He must also report if his children are married to foreigners and their whereabouts, their professions, and details of his wife’s job. The reporting form even covers any children who are born in or out of wedlock, and stepchildren.
Another senior cadre in northern Shanxi province said he must give details of all his income including any additional earnings such as lecturing fees and profits from the sales of personal items like paintings and works of calligraphy.
He is also required to disclose the family’s assets in China and abroad, including every family member’s savings, investments in properties and stocks, and insurance.
“We need to work out the total market value of these assets as of the end of January. I have heard that the disciplinary inspectors have a big data engine to check these values,” he said.
Details of the new system have yet to be made public, but Xie Maosong, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Strategic Studies at Tsinghua University, said that he expects it to include a broader definition of assets and business ties, as well as punishments for cadres caught making false reports.''
“Many things have changed since 2017. Now people can hide their illicit incomes in new instruments like cryptocurrencies, and these [changes] must be addressed through updates to the system,” Xie said.
“Also business links can go way beyond family. So it is necessary to require the officials to declare any other business links including those outside their families.
“The basic tenet of exhaustive reporting is that the Communist Party holds that all leading cadres must be honest and clean voluntarily.
“Those who are found to be dishonest cannot be trusted with responsibility and this is very different from the Western political system,” he said.
“China needs to constantly improve its system to better tie in this goal with its governance system to make the cost of lying higher as well as ensuring that the personal reports filed by cadres are verifiable and honesty will be rewarded with promotion,” he added.
China has made some progress in tackling corruption. In 2014, it scored 39 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index – a global measure in which 100 is the cleanest score. That score climbed to 45 in 2022, just above the global average of 44.5.
Chinese officials warned not to hide assets or business ties
A meeting of the Politburo last month told officials they must be ‘honest and open’ when reporting their personal financial situation
www.scmp.com
