By Tao Wenzhao

The White House webpage issued US President George Bush's statement on combating corruption and made public the National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy on August 10, again making the issue the focus of attention.

Combating corruption has been drawing extensive concern from the international community.

The dirty money of embezzlers and people involved in other corrupt activities has easy access to financial havens as a result of accelerating economic globalization and a vibrant global monetary market, which makes it increasingly easier to buy property, make investments, launder money and carry large amounts of foreign coin from one country to another. This is multiplied by an unprecedentedly large personnel flow between countries, which makes it hard to pinpoint the corruptors' hidings.

As a matter of fact, some corrupt officials have already arranged for their escapes when they commit economic crimes acquiring visas from more than one foreign country, for example. They head for the border the moment they sniff something ominous in the air.

This big loophole has become a headache for the world countries' anti-corruption efforts.

People are out to find a way out: How to deny the corrupt officials havens and deprive them of the opportunity to dispose of their dirty money?

However, there exist some barriers to world countries' orchestrated anti-corruption efforts. Judicial systems, for example, vary from one nation to another. Repatriation treaties are absent between many countries. Furthermore, a wrongdoer in one country can remain comfortably at large in another, owing to differences in values that, for instance, find expression in the fact that the death penalty is scrapped in some countries but remains in others. In some cases, the legal process takes a long time, even if ironclad evidence is produced.

Although a handful of corrupt people have been repatriated back to China, including Yu Zhendong, head of Bank of China's branch in Kaiping, Guangdong Province, the number is too small to have any overawing effects.

In December 2003, the United Nations convened a top political conference in Mexico, at which the United Nations Convention Against Corruption was signed. The convention took effect on December 14, 2005.

Many countries and international organizations have also agreed that it is necessary to set up a powerful international body to enforce the articles contained in the anti-corruption convention.

After two years of preparation, the meeting on the establishment of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities was convened in late April of this year in Vienna, under the auspices of the United Nations.

The participants, representing anti-corruption authorities in more than 20 countries, including China, unanimously said "yes" to introducing the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities and decided that its first conference and general meeting be held in China this October.

The leading body of the anti-corruption association is expected to be elected at the annual conference, and its charter and strategy will also be mapped out.

At their St Petersburg summit in July, the leaders of the G8 countries urged that international efforts to stop the escape of corrupt officials be strengthened. Bush committed to promote legal frameworks and a global financial system that will reduce the opportunities for kleptocracies to develop and to deny safe havens to corrupt officials.

It is against this backdrop that the White House webpage issued the National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy and President Bush's statement.

In the statement, Bush said: "High-level corruption by senior government officials, or kleptocracy, is a grave and corrosive abuse of power and represents the most invidious type of public corruption. It threatens our national interest and violates our values. It impedes our efforts to prompt freedom and democracy, end poverty, and combat international crime and terrorism. Kleptocracy is an obstacle to democratic progress, and undermines faith in government institutions."

He announced the implementation of the national strategy to prevent high-level corruption and deny corrupt officials from other countries access to the United States.

The strategy contains a number of counter-corruption measures:

Launch a coalition of international financial centers committed to denying access and financial safe haven to kleptocrats.

Vigorously prosecute foreign corruption offences and seize illicitly acquired assets.
Strengthen multilateral action against bribery.

Facilitate and reinforce responsible repatriation.

Target and internationalize enhanced capacities to detect, prosecute, and recover the proceeds of high-level public corruption.

In the past, many corrupt officials from the Chinese mainland escaped to the United States, carrying fat dirty money with them, and remained at large there, which many ethnic Chinese living in America resented very much. This author, during his US visit, heard them venting their complaints. Some could even pinpoint the land owned by the corrupt officials. Others even went so far as saying that the United States had become the sanctuary of corruptors. The image of the United States is very much smeared, which may be one of the considerations for the White House and President Bush in formulating the anti-corruption strategy.

The institution of the new anti-corruption strategy is, however, not enough and much work still needs to be done. The widest possible international co-operation, for example, is called for. Any nook left uncovered by international co-operation in this regard means wide living space for kleptocrats. In a scenario where some countries join in the anti-corruption co-operation and others don't, corrupt officials would move into the latter's territories.
 
International co-operation needs a wide range of mechanisms for sharing information, tracking down the corrupt people and freezing their illicitly acquired assets. Only with these mechanisms in place and operating efficiently can a real escape-proof net be set up for corrupt officials.

In addition, mutual trust is called for so that the obstacles erected by different judicial systems and ideologies in different countries can be overcome.

During the US visit of Chinese Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang in late July, the two sides signed a statement on furthering law enforcement co-operation, in which China and the United States pledge that the two parties will co-operate in hunting down and repatriating criminal suspects, combating transnational and organized crimes and cracking down on drug trafficking, money forgery and money laundering.

Although the two countries have been co-operating in these areas for years, there is still much room for expanding the collaboration. It is hoped that the White House's new corruption-combating strategy will help make bilateral co-operation more effective in this regard.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

(China Daily September 7, 2006)