Wu Guangzheng, top leader of the watchdog of the Communist Party of China (CPC), called on the Party to study and implement its first ever inner-Party supervision regulations made public earlier this month.

Wu, secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said Friday that the Party will continue to expand inner-Party democracy as an important basis for improved inner-Party supervision.

Addressing members of the commission gathering to study the regulation, Wu said the regulations underlined the important role of institutional building for inner-Party supervision and made it clear that the supervision of major leading officials and organizations of the Party is a top priority.

Wu, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said the regulations stress the need for its members to abide by both the Party's disciplines and the law.

No organizations or individuals will be allowed to enjoy privileges above the Constitution and the law, said Wu.

He promised the Party will constantly improve the regulations.

The party made public the regulations on Feb. 17 in an apparent bid to improve inner-Party democracy and as part of its efforts to fight corruption.

The 47-article, 10,000-word Regulations of Internal Supervision of the Communist Party of China (CPC) put all the party's 68 million members, including its paramount leader and top decision-making body, under public supervision, said Prof. Chen Dengcai, of the Beijing-based Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

"Its promulgation means the party has decided to base its anti-corruption efforts on stringent disciplinary rules rather than some Party leader's political will," said Li Yongzhong, special research fellow for the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection who participated in the 13-year drafting process.

In a report to a recent meeting of the commission, Wu said 174,580 leading officials at various levels across the country had been disciplined for breaking laws and Party disciplines from December 2002 to November 2003, including 6,043 at and above the county level and 21 at the ministerial level.

Only a small percentage of those punished were involved in graft cases, Wu said.

He said a total of 8,691 of those punished were deprived of Party membership and were prosecuted according to law, including 412 leading Party and government officials at or above the county level and six at the ministerial level.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2004)