Gao Bo, deputy secretary-general of the Clean Government Studies Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China's anti-graft work overseas made great progress last year, with more cross-border cooperation and the Anti-Corruption Declaration signed during APEC meetings in 2014.
International joint work in this field is indeed snowballing. CCDI secretary Wang Qishan told a visiting Russian delegation last week that China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Russia to fight corruption.
Despite an absence of an extradition treaty between Beijing and Washington, there are positive signs that the United States will help. The U.S. State Department said last month that China had agreed to supply "more evidence regarding their priority fugitive cases, so that we can increase our focus on the location and prosecution or removal of these fugitives".
"Sky Net" will target underground banks transferring illegally-gained money abroad, while officials' travel documents will be checked more closely to block corrupt ones from running away.
"With more pressure on corruption in China, more corrupt officials will run away. It's a natural response," said Li Yongzhong, an anti-graft observer. "Capturing fugitive officials will shore up confidence in anti-graft work, and overawe corrupt officials."
SOEs NOT A DEAD ANGLE
In March, China's business circle was struck by the fall of two leaders of giant SOEs. Graft investigations were announced into Xu Jianyi, chairman of top automaker FAW Group, and Liao Yongyuan, general manager of China's biggest oil producer, China National Petroleum Corporation.
The fall of the two moguls came after China's strengthened supervision to SOEs since the beginning of this year. At a key meeting in January, the CCDI said SOEs are no exception in strengthened governance of the Party.
The graft watchdog said in February that SOEs are a focus of inspection work this year. It has targeted 26 major SOEs for inspections, vowing to inspect all key central government-administered SOEs.
Fourteen SOEs were inspected in the past two years, leading to the fall of over 70 executives in 2014.
SOEs are very prone to corruption, as their governance system lags far behind that of other multinationals, according to Li Yongzhong.
In March, at least 15 SOE executives were put under investigation for corruption. As Li said, SOEs have become a major "battlefield" in the war against graft.
The anti-corruption drive will not affect the development of SOEs; instead, it can improve them by eliminating conservative groups and outdated practices, thereby protecting state-owned assets and helping build modern corporate governance, said Gao Bo.
However, Gao added that inspections in those giant firms requires technical staff in fields like financing, legal work and accounting, which will challenge the capacity of China's anti-graft organ.
