China's anti-corruption efforts have bolstered both the public's and global market's confidence in the government, said Mexican experts.[Special Coverage]
"It has had a very significant effect on the Communist Party of China (CPC) and across the society," Enrique Dussel Peters, coordinator of the China-Mexico Studies Center (Cechimex) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Xinhua in an interview recently.
China's hunt for both "tigers and flies," as high- and lower-ranking corrupt public servants are called, has snared corrupted officials working within the central as well as local governments.
Among the "tigers" brought down by the anti-corruption campaign were Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and Bo Xilai, former Party chief of Chongqing Municipality.
The campaign has even succeeded in discouraging officials from spending lavishly on sumptuous meals out, luxury watches and imported liquors, as the drop in sales of all the three indicates.
The Chinese government is serious about its anti-corruption drive, and the campaign is not a passing phenomenon designed to make headlines and then quietly subside, noted Dussel.
Echoing Dussel's view, Jose Luis Leon-Manriquez, a research professor at Mexico City's Autonomous Metropolitan University, said that the campaign shows the government is serious about eliminating a scourge that has threatened to undermine the economic and social achievements of the world's second largest economy.
Since 2014, China has repatriated over 2,500 people, including some 410 central government officials, who had fled abroad to evade justice, and recovered some 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in stolen assets, according to official figures released by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
There's more to the strategy than just punishing the criminals. Over the weekend, the Chinese government announced that a pilot program to prevent graft through greater oversight, implemented in three regions, was working well, and would serve to draft national anti-corruption legislation.
Details of the program were released for policy review during China's ongoing annual "two sessions."
The fifth session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC) and the fifth session of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference are being held in Beijing on March 3-15.
Oversight committees have been created at the district, municipal and provincial levels as part of a comprehensive strategy to quash wrongdoing.
Abraham Vergara, coordinator of the Accounting and Business Management program at the Iberoamerican University, noted the anti-graft campaign has fostered a climate of certainty and confidence in trade and investment in China.
That is more important as the United States retreats behind a barrier of protectionism, he said.
"Providing that confidence, that certainty is related to the opening up of the Chinese market," while cleaning the house sends a message that China is ready and able to play the role of a leading economic power, said Vergara. "They still have a way to go, but I think they are on the right path."
In the meantime, Latin America should take note of China's anti-corruption campaign, said Cechimex's Dussel.
"A good part of Latin America has a lot to learn from it," said Dussel.
