Speech by Gan Yisheng, Deputy Secretary and Secretary-General of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection

February 13, 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends:

Good Morning! On the 26th September of last year, I was here giving an account to my media friends of the transparency in administrative affairs of the Chinese government. Today, I would like to brief you primarily on the major success achieved in 2006 by China in the work on combating corruption and building a clean government.

In 2006, under the powerful leadership of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council and with the efforts made jointly by the party and the people as a whole, fresh progress and success was made in building Party’s good working style and a clean government as well as in the fight against corruption. Particularly remarkable progress was achieved in enforcing Party’s and administrative discipline, ferreting out deep-hidden corrupt officials, combating bribery in business transactions and redressing malpractices that infringe upon the interests of the people. Now, I shall stress an introduction of the situation of the following four aspects:

In the aspect of enforcing Party’s and administrative discipline

In 2006, the organs for discipline inspection and supervision at various levels gave 97260 persons Party’s disciplinary punishment, occupying 0.14 percent of the total number of the members of CPC. Among them, 78980 persons, 81.2 percent of the personnel who had been given Party’s disciplinary punishment, were punished due to jeopardizing the order of the social administration, to the neglect and dereliction of duties, violation of the regulations on the integrity and self-discipline and violation of financial and economic discipline, etc. 3530 persons who had been suspected of committing crimes were turned over to the judicial organs for being dealt with in accordance with law, occupying 3.6 percent of the personnel who had been given Party’s disciplinary punishment. Besides, there were also 37775 persons who had been given administrative disciplinary punishment. All these indicate that in 2006, great efforts were made continuously in investigating and dealing with cases while striving actively for prevention; on the other hand, these also demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of our Party cadres are clean and honest and the corrupt cadres are only a few. In broad outline, to enforce Party’s and administrative discipline is embodied in the following areas: firstly, persist in the principle that all are equal before the Party’s discipline. In 2006, we investigated and dealt with problems of serious violation of discipline and law by a number of leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial level. Seven cadres at that level who had been suspected of committing crimes were transferred to the judicial organs and dealt with in compliance with law. Especially, the high resolve and clear-cut stand by the Party’s Central Committee of seriously investigating and handling the grave violation of discipline by Chen Liangyu demonstrates fully the fact that whoever, no matter how high position he or she holds, so long as he or she goes against the Party’s discipline and the state law, should be all investigated and severely punished and that is by no means an idle talk.

Secondly, strengthen supervision and inspection and strictly enforce the discipline. The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the CPC Organization Department sent out two batches of inspections groups, six in all for the purpose of strengthening supervision and inspection over the whole process of change of term of office, investigated and dealt with 424 persons all together who had violated organizational and personnel disciplines, such as “asking for official position through improper ways for example providing bribery” and etc. In order to implement the reform of the salary system of the civil servants and enforce the discipline of standardizing allowance and subsidy, 491 institutions that had violated related policies and regulations were investigated and dealt with, an amount of 255 million yuan was involved, 2666 persons were given disciplinary and organizational punishment. To carry out strictly various regulations about clean conducts for administration, 1269 leading cadres in all, who had received cash, valued securities and payments certificates were investigated and punished and an amount of 54.4837 million yuan was involved; 23534 persons handed in on their own initiative 127 million yuan; 5754 Party cadres who had gambled were investigated and handled, among them, 45 had joined in gambling overseas.

Thirdly, in view of new situation and new problems, formulate in time the regulations about integrity and self-discipline. Last year, on the basis of in-depth investigation and research, regarding the facts that some leading officials, by taking advantage of their powers and functions, obtain unreasonable profits or expected unreasonable profits for themselves in the name of selling, buying or exchanging commodity apartments, entrusting others with responsibility for securities investment or managing money matters, or obtain unreasonable profits by various means for their spouses, children, relatives and friends and etc, we explicitly defined the standardization of conducts and drew up a plan at the plenary session of the seventh conference of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Fourthly, correctly apply policies and adopt the principle of combining severe punishment with leniency. While strictly enforcing discipline, we investigated and dealt with cases strictly according to discipline and law, stuck to the principle of learning from past mistakes to avoid future ones, and curing the sickness to save patient. For those who had made severe errors but could admit and correct mistakes on their own initiatives and cooperate with relevant organs in finding out their problems, we should handle them with leniency in accordance with regulations; for those who had made average mistakes, we should base our work on education and remedy and help them learn lessons from mistakes. For those Party cadres who could persist in principle, handle a matter impartially, and be bold in innovation, we should resolutely support and protect them. Last year, we clarified problems for 29379 comrades who had been falsely and wrongly accused.

In the aspect of ferreting out deep-hidden corrupt officials

A very important feature of the work on anti-corruption and building a clean government in 2006 was that through profoundly and meticulously checking the clue of the relevant cases, we were able to ferret out a batch of relatively deep-hidden corrupt officials at some places where no cases of serious violation of discipline by senior officials at provincial and ministerial level had been investigated and dealt with over many years, and able to thoroughly investigate some problems that had been reported through letters and visits for a long time, but without clear investigation results due to many kinds of reasons. We did the work mainly in the following three areas.

First, strengthen the work of reporting and whistleblowing. Through dealing with visits by the masses in a centralized way, starting the service of whistleblowing on line and through special hotline and improving the system of transferring the clues of cases, we further restructured the resources of whistleblowing, widened and unblocked the channels of reporting and whistleblowing and enhance the management of clues gained from reporting and whstleblowing. We intensified our efforts to supervise and review, and urged relevant organs to investigate and dealt with a number of cases in various ways. Last year, out of the cases that had been investigated and handled by nation-wide organs for discipline inspection and supervision, there were 46.2 percent that had originated from reporting and whistleblowing. For example, we had the cases of Jing Fusheng, former member of standing committee and director-general of the publicity department of the provincial committee of CCP of Fujian Province; Wang Wulong, former vice-chairman of Jiangsu provincial people’s congress, deputy secretary of the Party group of the provincial congress; He Minxu, former deputy governor of Anhui Province. All of the aforesaid cases were found out through reporting and whistleblowing.

Secondly, we probed into and examined meticulously the related clues found out from the cases. We attached great importance to the clues found out in the course of investigating and handling cases, particularly to the clues provided by the persons involved. We grasped “case within case” firmly, investigated and dealt with a number of “cluster of cases”. For instance, in the case of Zheng Xiaoyu, former director-general of State Food and Drug Administration, it was just at the time when the problems of violation of law by a number of officials at the bureau and division levels were being investigated and dealt with that the clue to the violation of discipline by Zheng Xiaoyu himself was found out and furthermore, he was ferreted out.

Third, make full use of the results yielded from inspection tour. Groups on inspection tour are stationed in a place or an institution for a relatively long period of time and as a result, they are able to listen to the opinions fully from officials and masses, have profound understanding of situation and find out existing problems. We verify in time the clues of suspected violation of law and discipline, which are found out in the course of inspection tour, or we supervise and urge relevant departments to verify these clues. From the verification, we have found and handled some big and important cases, such as the cases of Li Baojing, former procurator of Tianjing Municipal People’s Procuratorate; Du Shicheng, former deputy secretary of the provincial committee of CCP of Shandong Province and former secretary of municipal committee of CCP of Qingdao City and etc. All the clues to their problems have been found during the inspection tour.

In the aspect of combating bribery in business transactions

In 2006, the central authorities stipulated and distributed “Opinions on Unfolding Special Work on Combating Bribery in Business Transactions”. Following the plan drawn up by the central authorities, we took effective measures and did a solid job. Generally speaking, this special work has been going on smoothly and the situation in which the special work has been developing healthily and in order has emerged.

Firstly, the work on self-examining and self-correcting the unjustifiable business transactions has been launching in all-round way. Six major realms of project construction, land purchasing, trading on property right, government procurement, drug purchasing and distributing, resource exploitation and distribution and nine areas of bank credit, securities and futures, commercial insurance, publication and distribution, sports, telecommunication, electric power, quality control, and environmental protection have been stressed in every region and in every departments. The problems existing in management activities and market supervision have been conscientiously checked, found out and redressed. More than 2.6 million enterprises, institutions and related competent (supervision) departments across the whole nation have all been brought into the range of self-examination and self-correction. By self-examination and self-correction, managers and administrators in all trade have received a widespread education in anti-bribery in business transactions and their concept of correctly using power and their consciousness of managing business according to law and regulations has been enhanced to some extent.

Secondly, the efforts to investigate and deal with cases of commercial bribery have been intensified. Being closely centred around the problems tightly related to the vital interests of the people and those of severely damaging the order of market economy, the judicial organs and administrative law-enforcement departments at all levels have widened the channels of complaining and whistleblowing, strengthened the means of investigation and made break-through in a number of cases that have vile nature, wide-range involvement and widespread impact. In the whole country, all together, 10883 cases of commercial bribery have been found out and handled with the total amount of 3.766 billion yuan involved. Most recently, we shall also hold press conference and publicize a batch of typical commercial bribery cases.

Thirdly, we push forward steadily the building of long-standing effective prevention mechanism of commercial bribery. The 10th session of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress adopted The Amendment (Six) to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China and The Anti-Money Laundering Law. Laws and regulations have been gradually improved; system reform and institutional innovation have been promoted in depth and the building of good social faith has been constantly heightened.

In the aspect of redressing malpractices which infringe upon the interests of the people

In 2006, we adhered to the principle of both redressing malpractices and building good practices in a comprehensive way and paid great attention to the system, mechanism and institution in order to solve the deep-seated problems from their sources.

First, conscientiously solve the striking problems reported by the people. There were five outstanding problems reflected by the people, such as entrapping farmers and damaging their interests, endangering the security of lives and property of the people in manufacturing and distributing drugs and in work safety and other problems. To tackle the aforesaid problems, the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision specially drew up a plan. Authorities of various regions and related departments checked and handled 36259 cases of entrapping farmers and damaging their interests by driving up prices of agricultural supplies, manufacturing and distributing forged, poor-quality agricultural supplies, with the total amount of 442 million yuan involved. We also launched a special inspection and rectification project which were focusing on the links of research, manufacture, circulation and usage of drugs, and checked and dealt with 4681 cases of violating discipline and law in distributing drugs and providing medical service, with a total amount of 202 million yuan involved. We intensified efforts to investigate, handle and affix the responsibility for the accidents in work safety. The Ministry of Supervision participated in the investigation of 14 exceptionally big accidents. In coordination with the departments of environmental protection, it is continued to organize the special environmental protection action for the purpose of punishing the enterprises discharging wastes unlawfully and safeguarding the health of the people. 50 typical cases of breach of discipline and law of environment protection have been investigated and handled. By hanging out it’s shingle, we supervised and urged the investigation of 3 batches of 16 such cases.

Second, starting from deepening the reform, we took a step further in boosting special projects of redressing malpractices. In the area of correcting the unhealthy tendencies of collecting unreasonable fees in education, all the policies that the State Council launched in order to deepen the reform of the mechanism of ensuring the funds for rural compulsory education were better implemented. Across the country, more than 50 million rural middle and primary school students enjoyed free compulsory education. The central financial authorities allocated funds for supplying free of charge 35.30 million students from rural poor families in China’s middle and western regions with textbooks. Among them, the local financial authorities supplied 6.8 million boarding students with extra allowance for living expenses. In various regions of the country, 382 stipulations of documents that had not conformed to the State policy on collecting educational fees were corrected and annulled; 1448 items for collecting fees that had run counter to the regulations were sort out and handled. The problems related to collecting fees arbitrarily involved 572 million yuan and an amount of 349 million yuan was cleared up and refunded. With respect to redressing malpractices in purchasing and distributing drugs and providing medical service, the total amount for purchasing drugs by centralized public bidding across the nation reached 104.024 billion yuan. A concession of profit of 13.1 billion yuan could be offered to patients. The step of promoting the work on community health service in cities and new-type rural cooperative medical system was quickened. All these measures alleviated the problem of “being difficult and expensive to see a doctor” for masses. In terms of strengthening supervision over the farmer’s burden, by pursuing policy of benefiting farmers such as cancelling agricultural tax and supplying those farmers who produced grains with direct subsidy, the burden on farmers was lightened and the total amount lightened reached over 120 billion yuan. By specially redressing problems of collecting fees and fining unruly in rural water and electricity supply, farmer’s housing building, rural family planning, reform on funeral and interment and others, the burden on farmers were lightened by 4.619 billion yuan. In various regions, 3443 cases (or incidents) related to burden on farmers were checked and handled and 1952 persons were punished according to Party’s and administrative discipline and dealt with in some other ways.

The above-mentioned achievements made in combating corruption and building a clean government have fully demonstrated that the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Government are determined to combat corruption and this determination is firm and unshakable and that our understanding of the law governing the fight against corruption in the new situation has been continuously deepened and our ability to combat corruption and build a clean government has constantly become greater and greater and that China, in her work on fighting against corruption and building a clean government, has profound- mass-seated foundation and enjoys endorsement and support from broad masses of people. With strong and powerful leadership of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and State Council and the active participation and support of the whole Party and the peoples of whole nation, we have confidence and ability to unceasingly give greater impetus to the work in depth on combating corruption and building a clean government. With actual success achieved in building Party’s good working style and a clean government and combating corruption, we shall win confidence from the people.

That’s all for my brief introduction this morning. Thank you, everybody!

Now Vice-Minister Qu Wanxiang and I would like to answer questions from our friends on the subject of combating corruption and building a clean government.