The Communist Party of China (CPC) is showing more grit in its determination to fight corruption by urging officials to disclose personal assets such as housing and investments, a step that many consider a prelude to the introduction of a much-anticipated official property-declaration system.

Leading officials at various levels are required to summit reports of their property and investment activity and the jobs of their spouses and children to relevant disciplinary bodies. Those whose family members have emigrated will be closely monitored, according to a communiqué released Saturday by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), China's anti-corruption watchdog.

The items are additions to those required in a regulation enacted in 1997, in which leading officials were asked to report to the Party within a month when they or family members build, buy or rent out houses, marry foreigners or travel abroad.

The 1997 rule, known as Regulations on Reporting Major Personal Matters by Leading Officials, focused on leading cadres in the Party's organs at all levels – people's congresses, administrative organs, judicial organs at county level or above, and those equivalent to county officials or above in State-owned enterprises and companies.

The new regulations mark the Party's renewed efforts to "enhance management and supervision to standardize the code of conduct of leading officials to build a clean government," the report said.

The stricter rules came on the heels of a key annual meeting of the CPC's Central Committee that saw the country's top leadership vow to take a hard-line stance against corruption.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce show that about 4,000 corrupt officials have stolen about $50 billion from the country since China started its economic reform in 1978.

China is preparing for the establishment of an official property-declaration system to promote transparency, and this should be a major initiative against corruption, Premier Wen Jiabao said during an online chat with Internet users in March.

Ren Jianming, a professor of public administration from Tsinghua University, told the Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News that the "CCDI's calls pave the way for the launch of the official property-declaration system."

"The communiqué marks a step closer toward such a system that has long been expected to be unveiled," he said.

He suggested that at the initial stage of implementation, watchdogs are advised to publicize relevant details of officials within the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference before making the information available to society at large, and he noted that punitive measures should also be drawn up to deal with any deceptive reports.

Song Fufan, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told China National Radio that "the decision to include officials' housing, investments and family members' working conditions represents a clear response to the public call."

"The new regulation is expected to become a guideline for future anti-graft work of the Party and the CCDI," he added.

However, Zhang Liangui, also at the CPC Party School, cautioned that "the current declaration does not specify how to verify it or how to punish regulation offenders."

The CCDI also vowed to fight against cases regarding abuses of power, bribery and dereliction of duties and misconduct, that are found to be connected to leading officials and departments.

Anti-corruption efforts are already in effect in regions such as Altay, an autonomous prefecture on the northern border of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which heralded such changes throughout the country early this year by disclosing online the annual incomes of 55 new officials. A further 1,000 local officials' income and gift details were released February 17.

Local officials have to register and declare their annual income, including salary, welfare, bonuses, money obtained from teaching and writing, as well as any "gifts" or cash accepted by officials or members of their family for work-related reasons.

The registration and declaration of officials' property has been promoted and well practiced in developed countries, but has encountered difficulties in many emerging countries.

As early as 1766, Swedish citizens were given access to the tax records of civil servants and officials, right up to the prime minister.

In the interest of promoting social equality, China announced a guideline to regulate salaries for executives in the country's 135 centrally administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs).

It is seen as a response to last year's public outcry over the earnings disclosures of several SOE heads. For example, Fu Chengyu, president of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), registered a record annual income of 12.07 million yuan, while the average annual income of urban workers in China is about 30,000 yuan.

"The huge disparity must be dealt with step by step," the China Industrial Economy News wrote in an editorial. "The regulation may not produce an instant effect on promoting public equality in the short-term, but it marks a huge step toward that."

(Global Times September 22, 2009)