Tour of CPC's graft-busting team welcomed

BEIJING - The Communist Party of China (CPC) on Tuesday lifted a corner of the veil that covers its top anti-corruption body, offering foreign diplomats a glimpse of the running of the organization's key departments during an open day.

Wu Yuliang, deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC, briefed the 47 diplomats from more than 40 countries and international organizations about China's battle against corruption and opened the floor up to a question-and-answer session.

"The briefing session provided by the CCDI was extremely informative and valuable, particularly because all countries grapple with the issue of corruption, whether in the governmental, political or corporate sectors," said Courtenay Rattray, Jamaica's ambassador to China.

During the two-hour tour of the CCDI, the diplomats visited departments dedicated to publicity and education, legal affairs and case reviews and heard from the respective department directors, who spoke about the daily work of their teams.

When the diplomats visited the department that reviews cases, they were shown slides explaining the work involved in inspections and the review of alleged breaches of discipline by Party officials.

Seyoum Mesfin, the ambassador of Ethiopia in China, thanked the CCDI for offering him the opportunity to learn about the work, saying he had heard about anti-corruption cases in China before but had not previously known about how they were handled by the CCDI.

In a discussion with CCDI officials, the diplomats also raised questions about the building of more transparency in China, such as through the revelation of officials' assets to the public.

"It involves a lot of issues to make a law related to the revelation of officials' assets," said Hou Juefei, director of the legal affairs department. "We need to take into account the Chinese characteristics and then conduct complete research on the building of such a system."

An asset revelation system would need to have a firm footing and be feasible, Hou added.

China Daily

(China Daily 04/13/2011 page4)