Plenary session of CCDI to discuss new commissions to bolster effort

A key meeting of the country's top discipline watchdog, scheduled to open on Thursday, will further consolidate China's anti-corruption efforts and push forward the reform of the supervisory system, experts said.

The 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China will hold its second plenary session through Saturday, as decided at a meeting of the CPC Central Committee's Political Bureau on Dec 27.

Participants in the session are expected to discuss deepening reform of the national supervision system, which will centralize power to fight corruption and be crucial for China's future anti-graft deployment, according to Jiang Laiyong, a senior researcher at the China Anti-Corruption Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In the report delivered to the 19th CPC National Congress in October, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said new supervision commissions would be established across the country at various levels to provide a full inspection of public servants.

In early November, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the top legislature, also decided to submit the draft supervision law to the next NPC plenary session, which is expected in early March.

"Setting up the new supervision commissions is a major reform that will have new deployments and integrate anti-corruption resources, including existing supervisory, anti-corruption or bribery and duty-related prevention agencies within the governments and procuratorates to combat graft issues," Jiang said.

"Under the reform, the new supervision commissions at each level will become more authoritative to combat corruption under the direct leadership of Party committees and in particular, they'll effectively improve the capability to hunt down Chinese corrupt fugitives who are still at large abroad and recover their illicit assets," he said.

Since late November 2012, when Xi became the top leader of the Party and the military, anti-corruption has become a top priority across the country to fight both "tigers and flies", referring to high-ranking officials and low-ranking ones.

According to the CCDI, 159,100 people were punished for graft or discipline violations last year. Between January and November, 61,000 officials were punished for violating the Party's eight-point frugality code involving 43,400 cases, CCDI figures show.

The Political Bureau meeting on Dec 27 made clear that "anti-corruption work will be carried through to the end without any halt halfway", according to a statement released after the meeting.

Gao Bo, a political researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said governing the Party with strict discipline and fighting formalism and bureaucracy will also be highlighted at the CCDI plenary meeting that starts on Thursday.

"Only if the Party members place Party discipline and political rules as a priority, will they have a correct belief and ideals, actively keep away graft issues and fully perform their duties to better serve the public," Gao said.