The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee passed a five-year plan for the Party's prevention and punishment of corruption in a meeting on Monday.

The members of the bureau attending the meeting urged Party organs at various levels to take the plan, which aims at establishing a system to punish and prevent corruption from 2008 to 2012, as a guideline for their anti-corruption work in the next five years.

Presided over by Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the meeting asked Party organs around the country to put the implementation of the plan into their working agendas.

The anti-corruption plan emphasized the prevention of corruption along with punitive measures, which would combine punishment with education, supervision of officials and improving China's judicial system.

Central departments of the CPC and government should take the initiative to implement their duties of anti-corruption, the plan said, adding that the Party's disciplinary inspection organs should intensify their supervision over Party organs at their levels.

The plan said although the CPC had made much progress in anti-corruption efforts since the Party's 16th National Congress, it should be aware of the fact that fighting corruption would be a long-term tough battle.

China has strengthened its crackdown on transnational corruption under the framework of the UN Convention Against Corruption in recent years. The country had also stepped up its international cooperation to recover money taken abroad by criminal suspects.

China's top legislature ratified extradition treaties with Australia and France last Friday, which provided the legal foundation to bring back fugitive suspects for prosecution and sentencing in their home countries.

Also, last year, China established the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention, which was created to intensify corruption fighting and conduct additional international exchanges in the field.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2008)