The Fox Hunt 2015 campaign must close all exits for fugitives as China seeks to drive corruption into extinction, an anti-corruption expert has said.
The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) campaign officially began on Wednesday, following last year's campaign that saw 680 economic suspects,corrupt Party members and government officials return to China.
Huang Weiting of Qiushi, a Communist Party of China Central Committee (CPC) magazine, said that the number of returnees was only a very small portion of the number of such fugitives.
Key goals of the campaign is to squeeze the space for fugitives overseas and deter potential economic criminals.
"The overseas assets of China's state-owned enterprises were rarely audited, and even now auditing efforts fall short. More companies expanding overseas means more transnational economic activity," Huang told Xinhua Wednesday.
More corrupt officials are joining the transnational economic flux to transfer assets, and Fox Hunt is way to arrest that trend, part of a larger campaign codenamed "Sky Net" that combines government, Party, law enforcement agencies, the central bank and diplomatic services.
The MPS plans to preventing private overseas trips without proper visas and the illicit transfer of money via offshore companies and underground banks. To prevent more corruption-driven flights, high-level officials who have sent their families abroad are a special focus of attention. Such "naked" officials are banned from promotions and from "important and sensitive" posts in areas like the military, diplomacy and national security.These people often use their families as a conduit to transfer assets abroad, in preparation for their own flight.
Naked does not necessarily mean corrupt, but some of them definitely have the tendency to flee, Huang said. Regular official supervision and public scrutiny are needed to keep them in check.
In December last year, more than 3,200 "naked" officials at county-level or above were identified, among which, some 1,000 held key positions. Those whose families refused to return were demoted.
