CPC to tighten graft rules

The Communist Party of China's (CPC) top anti-corruption official called for stricter Party regulations and has requested amendments to three rules, in order to more effectively manage officials and Party members, at a top disciplinary meeting held in Beijing on Saturday.

The fourth plenary session of the 18th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC was attended by 123 members of the body.

During the session, Wang Qishan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the head of the CCDI, said CPC regulations should be stricter than laws, and he promised to improve Party rules to bring them in line with the law by making them precise, clear and practical, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Three Party regulations - including guidelines to ensure clean practices of Party officials, the CPC discipline regulation and the CPC inspection tour regulation - will be amended, Wang said.

Chinese analysts said that the stricter regulations provide an institutional guarantee for curbing corruption.

"The three CPC regulations are just below the Party constitution, which regulate CPC members in regard to their job duties, norms of behavior and the supervision of their practices," said Jiang Ming'an, a law professor with Peking University.

Just two days after the Party wrapped up its fourth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the CCDI meeting also discussed how to best put the plenum's decision on "comprehensively advancing the rule of law" into practice.

When explaining the relationship between the Party's rules and the rule of law, Wang said the Constitution defines the CPC's authority and duties, while Party rules ask the CPC to exercise its power within legal boundaries and implement the law through its policies.

A communiqué released after the Party plenum on Thursday vowed to form a system serving "the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics," and one of the system's five components is improving internal CPC regulations.

"It's the first time that the CPC internal regulations have been expressed as part of the rule of law," Xu Yaotong, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance, told the Global Times.

The status and importance of the CPC regulations have been elevated in the wake of the plenum, meaning misbehaving CPC members will face greater punishment after the regulations are further amended, Xu said.

The amendment to the CPC regulations should include new guidelines from the communiqué, as well as measures relating to supervision over inspectors and also give the right to appeal to misbehaving CPC members, according to Jiang.

A fierce anti-corruption campaign has swept China in recent years, with dozens of high-level officials sacked and placed under investigation for graft. North China's Shanxi Province has seen five members of the standing committee of its provincial Party committee put under investigation for disciplinary violations.

The Party is still facing a severe and complicated situation in terms of curbing corruption, Wang said during Saturday's meeting, adding that the Party is still unable to completely root out the sources of harmful working practices, so it may be difficult to prevent them from reemerging, Xinhua reported.

Despite fierce anti-graft initiatives, there are still officials who refuse to stop their wrongdoings and are even stepping them up, he said.

"Any corrupt officials who go back to their old ways will pay the price," he said. "We will drive on the anti-graft campaign, treating sick trees and uprooting rotten ones."

Wang also said no intra-Party cliques are allowed, and all members must abide by Party rules.

Establishing strengthened CPC regulations is just the beginning of regulating government officials as more needs to be done to ensure strict implementation of the regulations, analysts said.

Hu Xingdou, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that one of the biggest challenges in regulating CPC officials is abuse of power, attributing it to the lack of effective restrictions on decision-makers.

Other analysts shared Hu's view. They said that the Party has to put its regulations into practice rather than just laying them down.

The CCDI also elected a new deputy chief at Saturday's meeting. Liu Jinguo, currently deputy minister of public security, was elected as deputy secretary of the CCDI.

The session did not release any information on any further punishments for former security chief Zhou Yongkang.

Xinhua contributed to this story