The Chinese government is in favor of developing a guideline document to serve as a reference for states formulating a legal instrument dedicated to asset recovery, China's assistant foreign minister Qian Hongshan said here on Monday.
During the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, Qian called for deeper international cooperation in anti-corruption efforts.
He noted asset recovery is an important mechanism established by the Convention and states have the obligations to provide each other with the most extensive cooperation and assistance in line with the requirements of the Convention.
However, he said there remain considerable difficulties when it comes to cooperation on asset recovery due to differences in legal systems and other constraints among states.
"The Chinese government is in favor of developing a guideline document to serve as a reference for states or formulating a legal instrument dedicated to asset recovery so as to enable new progress to be made steadily in building the asset recovery mechanism," Qian said.
He said China has three proposals to strength the joint global effort to boost anti-corruption efforts -- to jointly discuss the fight against corruption based on equality and mutual benefits while taking into account the interests of all parties; to jointly build the anti-corruption mechanism by strengthening the role of the Convention and overcoming the institutional differences; and to jointly share the benefit of the fight against corruption through deepening international cooperation.
Qian said China attaches great importance to the fight against corruption. Particularly over the past five years, a series of measures had been taken to improve the anti-corruption legal and regulatory systems, and as a result the anti-corruption campaign is being consolidated and continues to build up, he said.
China, since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, has been drawn into a serious nationwide fight against corruption and engaged in purifying the political environment.
As the anti-corruption storm intensifies across China, efforts are spread abroad to chase back the corrupt suspects on the run around the world. To this end, China launched operations such as "Sky Net" and "Fox Hunt" to hunt corruption suspects who have fled overseas.
The office in charge of fugitive repatriation and asset recovery under the central anti-corruption coordination group said since it was established three years ago, more than 3,000 people who had escaped overseas had returned or been repatriated from 90 countries and regions, including 541 CPC and government workers.
Over 9 billion yuan (1.35 billion U.S. dollars) has been recovered, according to figures released in June of 2017.
At the G20 Hangzhou Summit in September 2016, international leaders endorsed the High Level Principles on Cooperation on Persons Sought for Corruption and Asset Recovery, and the 2017-2018 Anti-corruption Action Plan.
