By Lee Chun Ting
Wealth and authority make up the maze which is impossible for party politics to traverse. In the period of peacefulness when the importance is attached to the building of the country, the greatest danger to the ruling party lies in corruption. Opposing corruption and building clean politics is the political essence of Marxist parties, and it is even more urgent for China to maintain a peaceful and healthy economic environment in the new era. Since the reform and opening up, China has made world-renowned achievements in terms of economic and social development. However, at the same time, privileged corruption has increased in the CPC as well, which has led to the danger that the Party is separated from the people.
Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee, with General Secretary Xi Jinping at its core, has incorporated the action "Comprehensively Administering the Party Strictly" into the "Four Comprehensive" strategic layout before launching an unprecedented fight against corruption. It has been proved to be an effective mechanism to promote "don't dare, can't, and don't want to be corrupted" in an integrated manner and an overwhelming victory has been achieved.
Firming up the ideals and beliefs of the whole party and building a spiritual front against corruption
If a person's ideology relaxes the requirements for himself, deviations will be available in his actions. Since the 18th Party Congress, the Party Central Committee has organized educational and practical activities within the Party continuously in an all-round manner based on the policy "Comprehensively Administering the Party Strictly", especially the fight against corruption. Moreover, the Party Central Committee has conducted the mass line education for the Party, the education about "the Three Guidelines for Ethical Behavior and Three Basic Rules of Conduct" and the education and practice activities related to "studies on the theoretical and practical issues of party building". After the 19th Party Congress, the education of "remaining true to our original aspiration and bearing our mission firmly in mind" and the education of CPC history were also organized with success.
The content-connected and gradual in-depth education and practice-oriented activities of this kind within the Party insists on problem orientation and lays emphasis on solving evident problems within the Party. Through education, the CPC has strengthened the knowledge and comprehension of Marxist principles, socialist theoretical system with Chinese characteristics, and clean government culture mastered by all the Party members and cadres, so that they can maintain a pure political mind and establish an ideological and political line concerning the defense against corruption and change. The ideological education has effectively curbed the problem of decadence in four forms, which results in the significant improvement of the party and government style.
Establishing a sound intra-party supervision mechanism
There is no denying the fact that either big or small power can be abused once it loses its constraints and supervision. Since the 18th National Congress, the Party Central Committee has introduced the "the Party's eight-point frugality code". Since then, the Party Central Committee has brought in a complete system of Party regulations, including the ""Regulations on Supervision within the CPC", "Guidelines on Integrity and Self-discipline of the CPC" and "Regulations on Disciplinary Punishments of the CPC". For instance, the "Regulations on the Inspection Work of the CPC" (Regulations) newly promulgated in 2017 clarify the meaning shown by full coverage of inspection—a comprehensive inspection of the local, departmental, enterprise and institutional party organizations under management within one term. This change lays emphasis on the fact that no gaps are left in the supervision of the Party. In addition, the Regulations further promote the "Comprehensively Administering the Party Strictly" to the grassroots, which is a combination of internal supervision and supervision of the masses, thus broadening the way of inspection with regard to the identification of problems.
The CPC restrains and supervises power using the cage of the system. Through the system, the functions performed include the prevention and punishment of corruption, the realization of the unification in anti-corruption treatment of symptoms and root causes, and the elevation of the institutional construction of anti-corruption to a new stage.
Deepening the reform of the national monitoring system
The 2018 amendment to Constitution in China helped establish the legal status of the State Supervisory Commission and clarify the supervisory powers in the form of law. It is stipulated in Chapter 3 of the Supervision Law of the People's Republic of China that there are the objects of supervision in the form of legislation, clearly including public officials exercising public power of six categories into the scope of supervision, achieving full coverage of supervision of public officials exercising public power. It was rather evident that these initiatives made up for the shortcomings in the supervision of power effectively, established an efficient national supervision system, and forcefully realized the full coverage of supervision work, thus ensuring the in-depth promotion of the anti-corruption struggle.
Led by the Party Central Committee, from the 18th CPC National Congress to the end of April this year, the organs in charge of discipline inspection and supervision have investigated 4.39 million cases and 4.71 million officials nationwide. It was found that disciplinary organs dealt with more than 723,000 cases of violations of the eight-point rules on the improvement of the conduct carried out by the Party and government, with more than 644,000 people punished. Since 2014, Operation SkyNet has saved a total of 10,668 fugitives from more than 120 countries and regions, recovering 44.79 billion yuan of the stolen money. Under the high-pressure deterrence and policy inspiration, 81,000 people have voluntarily surrendered, and 216,000 people have voluntarily declared the responsibility of their problems since 2020. Moreover, the effectiveness of the anti-corruption struggle shown in the reduction of the stock and restriction of the increase has been continuously manifested. The new era of "Comprehensively Administering the Party Strictly" has fundamentally reversed the lack of efforts during the management of the Party, prevented the Party from being interfered with by interest groups resulting from the spread of corruption, maintained the flesh and blood ties with the people, and earned the cohesive unity of the Party as a whole.
It was pointed out by the report of the 20th Party Congress that the actions comprehensively administering the party strictly and the Party's self-revolution are always on the way. The 10 years' unprecedented anti-corruption struggle in the new era have been remarkable and world-renowned, but the stubbornness and danger of corruption must not be underestimated. The CPC must be brave enough so as to carry out a self-revolution with the aim of ensuring that the party will always remain to be a vigorous and powerful fighting force, to lead the social revolution with the party's self-revolution.
Lee Chun Ting, born and raised in Hong Kong, is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Marxism of Tsinghua University and Vice-President of Hong Kong Commerce & Industry Association of Youth Entrepreneurs Federation Limited. His main research interests are Marxist theory, Chinese Communist Party and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
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