A senior court official has suggested establishing the crime of
bribing foreign officials and officers of international
organizations based in China, to help fulfil the country's
obligations to the United Nations Convention Against
Corruption.
Xiong Xuanguo, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court,
said the criminal law should be amended to include the crime of
giving bribes to foreign officials, "but it is not yet the time to
establish the crime of foreign officers accepting bribes".
The official was quoted this week by Legal Daily while
giving his views on criminal law amendments to meet the terms of
the convention.
Although there are currently no specific laws in China against
bribing foreign officials, the Convention prescribes that both
giving bribes to and accepting bribes from foreign public employees
should be defined as criminal acts.
"Some experts suggested completely copying and replanting the
convention's stipulations, but I think they (giving and accepting
bribes) need to be treated separately."
Establishing the crime of giving a bribe to a foreign official
is a mandatory article in the convention.
"China holds the same strict and resolute attitude as other
global communities toward the fight against bribery crimes," Xiong
said. "The establishment (of the new crime) will help with
international criminal justice assistance and cooperation."
In his speech at the opening of the 17th National Congress of the CPC, President Hu Jintao said China never tolerates
corruption.
Wang Zuofu, a professor in criminal law at Renmin University of
China, said the establishment of such a crime will also help
maintain the country's commercial reputation and standardize the
behavior of citizens, legal personnel and other organizations in
international commercial activities.
However, Xiong said from a practical perspective it is currently
very difficult to establish the crime of accepting bribes by
foreign public officials, as they enjoy special diplomatic rights
and cases would be subject to complex legal barriers.
In recent years, there have been a number of graft cases
involving multinationals, although most have involved the bribing
of Chinese officials.
A survey conducted by Anbound said foreign companies were
involved in 64 of the 100,000 corruption scandals investigated by
Chinese authorities in the past 10 years, and the number is rising,
China Radio International reported.
For example, US computer giant IBM was embroiled in a corruption
scandal involving former China Construction Bank chief Zhang
Enzhao. Zhang was given a 15-year sentence for corruption in
November 2006 for taking a 4.15 million yuan (US$550,000) bribe to
facilitate loan and contract arrangements.
(China Daily October 20, 2007)