Lian Rongguan, a former bank official and deputy mayor of Renqiu
City in north China's Hebei Province, was arrested at his hide-out
in the coastal city of Yantai, in eastern Shandong Province, last month after he fled
with a huge amount of public money.
Lian is one of over 400 runaways who have been captured by
Chinese authorities in a new campaign to hunt former government
officials who have pocketed public money and possessions and gone
into exile.
The new round of hunting for these runaways, the second in the
past five years since 2001, was triggered by a 2005 report by the
anti-corruption bureau of the Supreme People's Procuracy, which
says more than 4,000 grafted officials were in exile.
The failure to arrest these officials swiftly may be detrimental
to the efforts to create a harmonious socialist society in China
the foundation of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), says
the report.
In fact, it has been a regular job for procurators and police to
chase after these runaway officials. The authorities captured 596
suspects in 2003, 614 in 2004, and 703 in 2005, respectively,
according to a report by Jia Chunwang, procurator-general of the
Supreme People's Procuracy at the recent parliamentary session.
So far, the authorities have published the names of these people
on the Internet, which has obliged many runaways to give themselves
up and encouraged the general public to tip off law-enforcement
departments.
In Henan Province, central China, local authorities arrested
28suspects only 20 days after they publicized a list of 222
names.
This time, the authorities have published the cost of capturing
these hiding suspects. It costs 10,000 yuan (US$1,250) of public
money to capture one of these runaways - it may cost 10 times
higher for major cases.
"Some cases may even cost 1 million yuan (US$125,000) or more,"
said Wu Heping, spokesman for the Ministry of Public Security,
recently.
In some cities, people have been paid 3,000 yuan (US$375) after
they gave information to the authorities about a suspect.
Meanwhile, the authorities have confirmed that among the 4,000
runaways, approximately 500 have gone into exile overseas, far less
than the figures reported by some media.
"They may have confused the number of corrupt officials in
hiding and the number of those in exile," said a procurator from
the Supreme People's Procuracy.
"We will chase after those who taken a large amount of public
money and have caused serious negative impacts at any cost," he
said
(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2006)