Corruption and Anti-corruption in China: Challenges and Countermeasures

As in most of the developing countries, corruption is becoming one of the serious challenges in the process China is striding forward to modernization. However, corruption in China is different in nature and extent from that in other nations due to the political structure and reform policy China has implemented. This paper devotes to differentiating typologies of corruption, analyzing the causes that engender corruption, expounding the dilemma that China faces in wrestling with corruption and the vital problems that China should attempt to solve in successfully eradicating corruption. Theoretical explanation as well as empirical studies will be presented in the paper. Introduction Corruption and Anti-corruption has become a heatedly debated issue in China among scholars as well as common people. No doubt, there had existed corruption since the founding of PRC. But most of the Chinese people, including the state leaders and the Party, had not supposed that the corruption in China would spread so fast and become so serious, and cause so much concern both domestically and abroad. The hatred toward corruption in China is reasonable and easy to understand. Nonetheless, two other attitudes or viewpoints toward corruption have also been engendered in the society, suggesting a pessimistic emotion and an ostrich point of view. The pessimistic emotion has been most widely proliferating among common people who are becoming increasingly despaired toward the mounting corruption and the ineffective anti-corruption policy and measures of the government, while the ostrich point of view has mainly been accepted by some of the people who believe or wonder the unavoidability of corruption in a certain development period in certain nations. The latter perspective reflects a rational assessment between the cost of corruption and anti-corruption, of which the basic argument is that, to some extent, corruption is an efficient mechanism to promote economic development since corrupt behaviours might function in breaking the existing interests and power state quo of a society. In addition, this perspective has also reflected a kind of pessimism in a guised form because it argues that it would be better to let corruption alone since so much effort has been made and so much cost has been spent but created so little effect. In deed, many Chinese people have lost their confidence in anti-corruption actions and they would rather not bother the issue. Many scholarly observers have alertly noticed the connection between corruption and the transitional nature of the society. They picture the worsening of corruption as a somewhat particular phenomenon in a transitional society. Other scholars, though, keeping the same sensitivity toward the “transitional society”, have prodded deeper into the more fundamental causes toward the worsening of corruption. All the above-mentioned arguments and opinions are found on their grounds. Based on a comprehension of scholars’ perspectives in China in their expertise of corruption and anti-corruption, however, this paper will mainly dedicate to the study of the characteristics, forms, and trends of corruption as well as a discussion on China’s anti-corruption efforts. Forms, Features and trends of Corruption in China: Old and New Corruption is not a newly-emerged phenomenon in China. Even in the Maoist era, there existed varieties of corruption. But the corruption in the Maoist era was quite different from that in contemporary China. This actually illustrates the changes and continuity of corruption in terms of forms, features, and the extent of severity of corruption happened in the past and prevailing presently. Contradictory institutional arrangements and ideological doctrines shaped the forms and characteristics of corruption in PRC before the reform. On the one hand, to promote the state-building and economic development, Chinese society was highly organized, which mainly relied upon the development of a rather hierarchical bureaucracy. Both the Party organs and the state organs were made inevitably powerful and strong so as to realize the grand goals of the communist state. As all the state bureaucratic arrangement in various nations, corruption was inevitably produced where bureaucratic operation and organized power were institutionalized. In fact, even before the overall success of revolution when the communist force was confined within some revolutionary bases, the communist leaders including Mao Zedong had noticed the increasing danger of bureaucratic misconduct and corrupt behaviours germinated in the process of revolutionary development. Thus, on the other hand, in order to preclude emergency of bureaucratic routine and corruption, a plain lifestyle for all party cadres and government officials was advocated and an equalitarian ideology was propagandized. They were not only the splendid discourse of the party and the state, but also guaranteed by a series of disciplines, rules and institutions. In addition, various mass movements were constantly initiated in Moist era, for which, though actual purposes were complex, the effect was obvious in intimidating and preventing wrong-doers in officialdom. In the Moist China, therefore, corruption existed but was restrained. The forms of corruption in this historic period generally fall into the following categories. First, political and economic privileges utilized for personal interests, exhibiting in a substantial life level for the corrupt official himself and his family superior to others. Second, privileges for exchanging loyalty and substantial contributions from those who were in the network of certain patron-client relationships. Easy to be accessible to the so-called “back door” was the main specific right for the party cadres and government officials, especially for the senior cadres. The interests the corrupt cadres and officials gained were mainly commercial goods, sometimes including sexual favours. The above-mentioned two types of corruption could be classified as the forms of nepotism, power abuse and manipulation of patron-client relations. Third, misconduct of graft and embezzlement. Though this form was highly dangerous and easy to lead to severe punishment, attempts to be engaged in were not thoroughly eradicated. But corrupt gains in Maoist era generally were to a great extent constrained. Obviously, the rather limited corrupt gains for the cadres and government officials in the Maoist era were partly due to the shortage of luxuries under the rather underdeveloped economic conditions in addition to the restriction from the strict political disciplines, moral doctrines and mass movements. Though the aforementioned forms of corruption inherited, the forms, extent and characteristics of corruption have changed greatly in the reform era. To further illustrate the situation of corruption in China, a brief look at the typologies proffered by scholars is needed. One famous scholar specializing in corruption is Heidenheimer. Heidenheimer classified corruption in China in three categories. Class A or "black corruption":The corrupt practices in this category, including graft, bribe, fraud, embezzlement, extortion, smuggling, tax evasion, etc, constituting an important part of "economic crimes". Because they are obviously illegal and the main purpose of those involved in these practice is to increase their personal wealth, government officials and the public generally agree that such practices are corrupt. Class B or "grey corruption". The key characteristics of this category, into which more and more practices are being categorized, is leaders of public institutions using their institutional power to increase the interests of their institutions and improve the welfare of their staffs through various legal, semi-legal and illegal ways. Such practices includes public institutions making profits by engaging in business activities (such as public bank enter into the stock market,the bureau of environment protection selling environment protection facilities to their clients), setting up satellite companies, and imposing fines or collecting administrative fees or charging the so-called 'service fee' and then putting the income into their own coffers. Class B also includes such "unhealthy practices "as the extravagance and waste, e.g., spending public money to support luxurious work conditions and/or life style by senior officials. Such extravagance and waste is manifested in many aspects: expensive entertainment, costly foreign cars for senior officials, magnificent and tastefully furnished office buildings, domestic or foreign travel in the name of official business, etc. Such "unhealthy tendencies "and the associated corruption, both significantly increasing the public's burden, have led to a significant public outcry. Class C: or "white corruption": Class C practices constitute a kind of 'common practice' of social life. They include the nepotism and favouritism in the personnel recruitment and promotion, bending the law in favour of relatives and friends in law enforcement, preferential treatment in resource-allocations for relatives and friends, etc. They are characterized by preferential treatment by officials of relatives, friends, fellow-villagers etc. much of which is, in fact, a way of reciprocating previously given favours. Such practices have penetrated widely into public life, influencing the behaviour of government officials and ordinary citizens as well, contributing to the operation and existence of networks of personal ties. Creating and maintaining the networks of personal relations to seek and give favourable treatment is accepted by most people, including government officials, as a 'normal' practice when they involved in these practices. However, such networks are condemned by those excluded from them although they will not hesitate to engage in such practice should they have an opportunity to do so. The above-generalized forms of corruption are universally acknowledged in the academic circle of Chinese studies, however, they are not so excluded from one another. In fact they are closely mingled that it is hard to tell the exact boundaries between them. Additionally the corrupt situation in current China is so serious that almost all the existing types of corruption can be spotted. Gerald Caiden has set forth a typology of corruption, cited in the following figure, from which almost all the misconducts and malpractices can be found in contemporary China. Figure: Regularized Forms of Non-violent Corruption Political shortage and espionage; illegal surveillance; frame-ups Electoral chicanery; gerry mandering; ballot stuffing; ineligible voters Public employment; payroll padding; sinecures; nepotism Legally bestowed monopolies Non-competitive contracts; fixed/rigged bidding; profiteering Expropriation of property; illegal search and seizure; Favors, bribes, pay offs, kickbacks, commissions Gratuities, gifts, presents, tributes, “service fees” Discriminatory distribution of public monies Preferential treatment in obtaining public services Loans, grants, subsidies of public resources Deceit, fraud, improprieties; unlawful detention; house arrests; forgeries Tax avoidance and evasion; non enforcement of laws and regulations; unlawful orders Conflicts of interest; influence peddling; use of confidential information Illegal use of the mails and telecommunications Misuse of official seals, stationery, residence and perquisites Boondoggles; junkets; conspicuous consumption; self-gratification File tampering; false evidence Currency manipulation; smuggling; swindling the state and citizens Undeserved pardons; remissions and suspension of sentences Covering up, white washing and exonerating gross misconduct Source: Gerald Caiden, 1993. Official Corruption and Political Stability.<>, Issue 7, vol. 3, 1993. The above figure is suggested to describe the panorama of corruption in Sudanized politics under the rule of General Numayri. But in China, scholars have attempted to initiate a comparative study of the politics of contemporary China with that of Sudan under Numayri’s rule, and raised serious concern on Sudanized political situation in contemporary China, where an evilly mutual interaction of corruption and political and economic life has been built which might eventually cause the collapse of the regime. (Qin Hui, 2002) While corruption in contemporary China is a commonly recognized phenomenon and shares the primary characteristics of corruption in other countries, it is prominently characterized in a transitional Chinese style because of its rather different social, cultural and political background. Taking a comprehensive understanding of corruption in current China, this paper categorized the main corruption forms in China as follows. 1) The form of “No.1 leader Corruption”(yibashou fubai). This form of corruption is enticed mainly by the specific institutional arrangement of the political system of China. It is rather difficult to tell to the outsiders who is “the No.1 leader” in so many diversely political, economic and social apparatus and organizations in China. For a state owned firm or cooperation, say an economic organization, the general manager is “the No.1 leader”, for a jurisdiction, say a provincial, a prefecture or a county, “ the No.1 leader” actually means two persons holding respectively the power of the party and the power of the government, e.g. the No.1 leader of the party apparatus and the No.1 leader of the government. But when these two paralleling institutions are referred to a level of state apparatus as a whole, the No.1 leader is usually used to refer to the head of party apparatus, say the party secretary of a party committee. Generally, however, opportunities for corrupt behaviours are provided for both the so-called No.1 leader of the party and the No.1 leader of the government. Because under the specific institutional arrangement of “ the collective responsibility but personally job allocated system”, administrators hold the power and responsibility of daily work, but actually the decisions and personnel are discussed and decided jointly by administration and party apparatus, usually at the meetings of a level of party committee where administrators hold the secondary importance. In state-owned economic organizations and other social organizations with less political concern where manager or corporation responsibility system is implemented, the managers or administrators are regarded as the key figures. But the heads of the party apparatus in such nonpolitical organizations are still of critical importance if the organizations are considered important politically and economically. In a jurisdiction, say a province, a prefecture and a county, rather than keep a check and balance relationship, the paralleling party apparatus and government are incorporated. Both the No.1 leader of the party apparatus and the government are powerful in decision making, resource allocation and interest distribution. The No.1 leader of the party apparatus usually keeps the power of personnel operation which affords him chances to sell public positions, while the No.1 leader of the government is afforded the opportunities to extract interests of economic development, public projects. Of course, both of them might take the advantage of their power to graft, specification, bribery and embezzlement. The typical cases are the case of party secretary of Beijing municipality, Chen Xitong, and the case of the former chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang minority autonomous region and later the vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People’ Congress, Cheng Kejie. For administrative apparatus and economic organizations, the biggest and typical No.1 leader corruption cases are the cases of the Minister of the National Land Resources Ministry, Tian Fengshan, and the President of the Bank of China, Wang Xuebing who were both accused of abusing power and causing great loss of the state interests. 2) The Form of Personnel Management Corruption.(yongren fubai) Though in China, all procedures and measures relevant to official selection are institutionalized, they usually mean guises not realities. Whether a person could be selected to an important position or promoted to a higher position depends on whether the person has developed close ties with the leaders of high ranks. The ties could be those types of relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues of high rank officials or could be produced by providing substantial interests, and nowadays mainly by sending commercialized interests, usually by directly sending money to the leaders. Selling and buying public positions is the main form of Personnel management corruption, of which the typical case is the case of a county governor of Hepu city in Guangxi Zhuang Minority autonomous region who sold public positions at precise prices coined by himself according to the levels of the positions. The public positions are increasingly becoming sources for exchanging interests, support and loyalty in current China. 3)The Form of Collectively Practiced Bribery Corruption.(gonghui) The resource and interest allocation system in China is rather redistributional, further enhanced by the paternalist way of the government or government organs at higher levels of treating departments, professions and localities at lower levels preferentially or discriminately. Important power and resource are often centralized in the hands of those government or government organs in higher positions. Localities, enterprises and other social actors have to compete for the administrative approval, special treatment and other favourable policies from the government or government organs at higher levels, and even some quasi-government organizations which monopoly the distributional power of resource and interest. The best way for the localities, departments, enterprises or other social actors to successfully compete is to develop close relations with government, government organs at higher levels or whoever in the monopoly positions, or to turn the public relations into private ones by bribing those who are thought critical in resource and interest allocation or policy making. Such a type of corruption is in the category of grey corruption because it is usually practiced collectively and for somewhat public interests of certain localities, departments, enterprises and other collective actors. It is becoming increasingly a critical way for resource and policy competition in China in the reform era because the competed targets, such as production materials, trade qualifications, capital circulation, land use and other administrative approvals are vital for the development of certain localities, departments, enterprises and other collective actors. The typical characteristic of such a kind of corruption is to use public money to bribe for public interests, but its harmful impacts are no less serious than those of other corruption forms. 4) The form of Public Money Consumption Corruption or Power Abuse Corruption(hangye buzheng zhifeng and puzhang langfei) The political culture and administrative culture in China have inherited that of the Chinese feudalism based on the Confucian ideology emphasizing the importance of and reliance on authority, especially hierarchically political and administrative authority. The political and administrative authorities have been thought to be powerful and capable to do anything. This was exacerbated by the institutional arrangements characterized as power centralization and administrative arbitration. Both government and citizens are tolerant for power abuse and even apathetic to the phenomena of abuse, waste, extravagance and arbitration of government and its officials. Few people think that the power in the hands of public servants are of the public, but rather take it for granted that government officials deserve the privileges. In contemporary China, waste, extravagance and luxury are surprising. It is estimated that every year, spend on official-used cars is 30 billion $ US, and the total amount of government waste is approximately 250 billion $ US. Government budget and public fund are the main sources of such a big waste, but they are obviously not enough. Government and its officials at all levels have to rely on illegal measures and malpractices to support their high standard enjoyment. Each of the government organs and departments has developed its own ways of abusing power for raising fund. The notorious “three arbitrations”(san luan) is the few among many, namely, illegal charges, illegal fines and illegal fund raising. In fact, every chance and every piece of pubic power can be privatized in contemporary China as a way to realize personal interest, by which, wealth and luxurious life facilities of government officials are growing extraordinarily fast, rapidly enlarging the gauge of lifestyles of government officials and common citizens. 5)The form of Public Project Corruption.(gongcheng fuba) China is now in the track of economic take-off and the whole country is like a huge construction site. It is admitted that public investment is the key pivot to promote economic development and this is especially true for China. Actually, nearly all public investment might provide chances for government officials to extract money. This is because that all public projects have to be contracted out, which means that government officials actually play a role of public agent responsible for bargaining with the contractors. All the secrecy hides here. Since the government officials responsible for certain public project s have the power to decide who are qualified for the job, and since they are entrusted to determine the baseline of bargaining with the contractors, they have enough incentive to turn traitor to public interest and to collude with the contractors. In fact, the kickback of public projects is so high in China that it is estimated that 20 percent of a certain public project fund is utilized to bribe the relevant government officials. That is to say, for a public project of 1 million yuan, 200 thousand yuan is used to bribe the relevant government officials in the form of kickback. In light of this, no wonder so many key figures at each level of government have attempted hard to involve in public project, and as a result, many of them have been accused and prosecuted. 6)The form of Examining and Approval Power Corruption.(shenpi fubai) China is now in the transitional period, which means that the nature and the features of the old system will last for a rather long time before China completes the course of transition. In deed, many scholars both at home and abroad have cast doubts on whether China can be judged as a country of market economy since government intervention and administrative discretion are still playing critical roles in economic life. The prominent manifest of government intervention and administrative discretion is the examining and approval power in the hands of the government and government organs. In China, enterprises, citizens and other social actors find it difficult to step across the large number of complicated processes and procedures of administrative examining and approval. For an example, if someone is to open a small bookstore, he has to be examined and approved by a number of official departments, including the department of city management, the department of taxation, the department of industrial and commercial management, the department of city construction, the department of cultural affairs, the department of public security, the department of news and press management, the party’s propaganda department, and so on. The entrepreneur is probably to be blocked by any of the listed official apparatus. Usually it is so hard to get the examining and approval from the government organizations that it is regarded as a shared and tacit consent to “buy the road”, e.g. to bribe for the official approval. It has become a main way for the officials responsible for examining and approval to take the advantage of public power to blackmail and fraud their “served” enterprises and citizens to extract money. Actually, there popularizes a saying describing this phenomena as “no money, no approval; less money, slow approval; much money, fast approval”, which vividly pictures the situation of administrative corruption in nowadays China. While the aforementioned forms of corruptions are only a few prominent ones, there still exist a number of corruption types in China which can be categorized in different classes and are not included in our discussion in this paper. Growing new tendencies of corruption is worth mentioning here, displaying some new features of corruption. 1) While a great many of officials in the public sectors are involved in corruption, a large number of senior cadres and their families have become subjects of corrupt actions, manifesting a increasingly serious corruption situation in the country. Before the reform era, senior cadres were distinguished from others mainly in that they enjoyed a special lifestyle based on their ranks and the state provided what they needed in the form of substances and life facilities, such as big houses, cottages, larger quota of supplied food and meat, cars and other necessary commodities for their families, bur rarely in the form of money. Things have changed greatly since China initiated the market-oriented reform. The senior cadres no long enjoy their privileges in the substantial form but in the form of high salary and welfare. But what they have gained from the state, if compared with those who have accumulated much wealth and rapidly become extraordinarily rich, seem rather trivial. Therefore they began to become more greedy and predatory to gain wealth. The public power in their hands has soon been inverted as a tool and media for them to squeeze interests. Power cohabiting with capital has rapidly created the crony capitalism in China. Though the CPC feels difficult to eradicate such corruption committed by senior cadres, inspection and punishment have become increasingly severe. A large number of senior cadres and their families involved in economic crimes have been exposed and prosecuted, among whom, Chen Xitong, a politburo member of CPC and the party secretary of Beijing, Chen Kejie, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of NPC and former governor of the Guangxi Zhuang Minority Autonomous Region, Hu Changqing, the vice governor of Jiangxi Province, Tian Fengshan, Minister of National Land Resource Ministry, Wang Xuebing, president of the Bank of China, Wang Huaizhong, vice governor of Anhui Province, Cheng Weigao, party secretary of Heibei Province, Li Jiating, vice governor of Yunan Province are the most notorious. It is pessimistically assessed that few senior cadres of the party and government are clean from corruption. This has immensely harmed the reputation of the socialist party and state and greatly undermined the moral and political basis of the regime. 2) While petty cases of corruption are numerous, so-called big cases of corruption have increased in number and by the extent of severity. Corruption is a widely spread phenomena in China, not only manifesting in that varieties of forms of corruption, large number of officials of all ranks involved in corruption, but also exhibiting in that there has emerged a tendency that the number of big corruption cases is enlarging. In 1980s, economic crime case of 10 thousand yuan was judged as big case, but in 1990s, the figure has risen to 100 thousand yuan. Within the first eight months of 2000, 23,000 graft cases were investigated and 1.6 Billion yuan recovered. Four people holding minister-level positions were investigated. Prosecutors investigated a total of 5700 government and CCP officials (Xianhua, 15 Sept. 2000) The President of the Supreme People’s Court announced that 15748 government officials and businessmen had been sentenced for corruption during 1999. In the first six months of 2000, the figures were reported to be up 7 percent, with the number of judges, prosecutors and judges prosecuted up 33 percent.(SCMP, 22 July 2000, Internet edition). Some big cases are so spectacular that people are hard to believe. In the massive smuggling scandal in Xiamen, it is estimated that at least 80 billion yuan has gone missing. A mixture corruption, negligence and shady investments had caused losses of over 1 billion yuan from Shanghai ‘s medical, pension and housing funds. Such big cases have resulted in shocking impacts among the people and caused enormous outrages. 3)At the same time when single-person-committed corruptions are flourishing, collective-collision-committed corruptions have become more popular and prominent. Due to the China’s special political and administrative institutions as mentioned above, collective corruption is easy to be enticed, and officials in the same department and organization are found to conspire for corruption in the name of public good. Actually, the bigger the corruption case is, the more possible for officials to cooperate in practicing corrupt actions. The typical example is the huge project to dam the Yangtze River at the Three Gorges, a project already billed at $ 72 billion and designed to boost electricity by 10 percent and to tame downstream flooding. An audit of the resettlement project revealed that 473 million yuan had been misappropriated(8.8 percent of the total funds audited) and used to build offices, dormitories and to set up companies.(Xianhua, 28 January 2000) In July 2000 it was reported that 97 government officials involved in the project had been found to have engaged in corrupt practices. One official was condemned to death for stealing 15 million yuan to invest a hotel, while another stole 650, 000 yuan from one of the resettlement accounts. A further 425 million yuan is still mission and while staff at the Three Gorges Economic Development Corporation had not been paid for 11 months, their boss had run away with over 1 billion yuan.(SCMP,3 May 2000, Internet Edition) Such a case exhibits loopholes and weakness deeply embedded in China’s political and administrative structure, for which without effective remedies, corruption will lead to its collapse. Anti-corruption efforts and measures in China The increasingly serious corruption situation in nowadays China caused great social dissatisfaction and outcry, and has caught the serious notice of the central authorities as well. Great effort has been made and various measures have been taken to prevent the situation from worsening. Since late 1980s and early 1990s more emphases have been laid on the issue of anti-corruption and anti-corruption is one of the primary themes of the Party’s congresses and the sessions of the Central Committee of CCP, exhibiting the caution and anxiety of the party and its leaders on such an issue. Decisions, regulations, disciplines and rules have been constantly initiated in order to curb the impetus of corruption. Since China’s social and economic transition might last for a rather long time due to the nature of incremental reform, more fundamental means should be taken into consideration in addition to the following efforts and measures. 1) The Strengthening and improvement of Various Anti-Corruption Agencies and Institutions. Since 1978, the Chinese authorities have re-established various anti-corruption work agencies, which were paralysed during the Culture Revolution. At the end of 1978, the Central and local Commissions for Discipline Inspection of CPC, whose major function is to supervise party members and leaders in various political organisations on the basis of the party's disciplinary regulation, were re-established. The Supreme People's Procuratorate and local Procuratorates, whose major task is to supervise law-enforcement and investigate and prosecute economic crime, were re-established in 1978. The Ministry of Supervision and its local branches, whose major task is to supervise government officials and punish those who violate administrative discipline, was re-established in 1987. The Anti-Corruption Work Bureau was established at the beginning of 1990's under the command of the Procuratorates to serve as the major anti-corruption agency. In order to straighten the anti-corruption organs and enhance their independence in law and discipline enforcement, the Chinese government has taken several measures to improve the leadership system of these agencies. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and its local branches and the Ministry of Supervision and its local branches were merged into one body, and began to joint work in 1992. The government also worked to strengthen vertical leadership within the system of anti-corruption agencies, although such leaders must still simultaneously accept the party committee's leadership at the same level. Finally, the central and local Commissions for Discipline Inspection of CPC has began to play a coordinator role in anti-corruption work among various anti-corruption agencies. Other important institutional reforms that have helped to curb corruption have been implemented within the past two decades. These include: 1. Increasing the transparency of the public decision making process. Beginning in the late 1980's, some local governments and departments began to the experiment with making the procedures and results of handle official business decisions public so that citizens could supervise the government's work. Since the beginning of 1990's, such practices have spread to more and more local governments and departments. 2. Additional mechanism for internal control of institutional power, such as teamwork, overlap of duties, reduction of the power of individual officials etc. have been implemented. 3. The so-called “regulation of avoidance(of relatives)and transfer of leading cadres” at various levels have been implemented. “The regulation of avoidance of leading cadres” has three aspects: First, avoidance of such conflicts in holding official posts, namely, senior officials must avoid having their spouses, children or relatives hold important posts in their own work units. Second, avoidance of such conflicts in official business, namely, senior officials are not allowed to participate in official business or exercise influence on such activities if they involve their own or their kin's interest. Finally, the avoidance of such conflicts in regional assignment, namely, officials local to a specific county are not allowed to hold senior official pests in that county. The “regulation of transfer of leading cadres” requires that government officials be transferred regularly from one region to another or from one department to another in order to break whatever personal networks may have developed. This avoidance and transfer practice is inherited form the traditional Chinese imperial practice. 4. According to recent regulations, all senior officials at the county level and above must report their income from all sources every half-year. Although this should be an effective measure for detecting corruption, its effectiveness has been weakened to the present in large part by the backwardness of banking and tax systems in contemporary China, the lack of special organs to verify such income registration and the failure to make such registration a legal requirement rather than one backed up only by party and administrative disciplinary regulations. 5. Report centres have been established and the reporting system improved: The report centres within the Procuratorates and the Supervision Ministry and its local branches were established in 1988. Citizens can report any evidence of economic crimes by phone, fax , letter, or orally to such centres. Citizens have provided a vast amount of such evidence to these centres. For example, from April to June 1988, the Ministry of Supervision's hotline received 1,250 calls. Elsewhere, the report centres attached to the Shanghai Procuratorate received 15, 000 reports in one year. Of these, 11, 035 provided relevant information about graft, bribes and other such acts. The report system was recently improved through additional measures to protect and reward those citizens who reported evidence of corruption and informing them of the progress and results of the relevant investigations and trials.(He, 2000) 2)Anti-Corruption Campaigns. Since 1978, the Chinese government has launched four anti-corruption campaigns. The first one, which began in 1982, targeted economic crimes with significant success. 136, 024 cases of economic crime were investigated, of which 44, 000 were wound up with 26, 000 person's convicted and 44, 000 persons surrendering themselves to the police. The second anti-corruption campaign, which began in late 1983 and lasted until early 1987, concentrated on consolidating party organisations. During this movement, a large number of party members who had violated party discipline or engaged in corrupt activities were punished, including 35, 616 senior officials at the county level and above. The third anti-corruption campaign began in 1988 and reached at its peak in the late 1989. A huge number of corrupt officials were punished or surrendered themselves to the anti-corruption agencies. According to official statistics, 11, 763 cases of graft, bribery and other relevant crimes were accepted and heard by the Procuratorates in 1989 , of which 58, 726 cases were investigated and prosecuted, 20, 794 criminals were arrested, and 482.86 million yuan were recovered, 36,171 officials surrendered themselves to the anti-corruption agencies from August 15 1989 to October 31,1989. The fourth anti-corruption campaign began in the late 1993 and has lasted to the present. This campaign has had three focus: addressing the issue of self-regulation of senior officials; Strengthening the investigation and prosecution of large-size corrupt cases and forcefully curbing unhealthy tendencies within government departments. The newest anti-corruption campaign has had some positive effects as indicated by the slight improvement of the perceived corruption degree in China after 1995 by Transparency International(TI). But the situation facing anti-corruption agencies is still very serious and there is no reason for optimists. These four anti-corruption campaigns not only focused on cracking down on what were clearly Class A forms of corruption but also initiated some measures to combat the other Class B and C corruption. These measures include: 1.Regulationson prohibiting public officials and their institutions from engaging in business activities and running satellite companies. The separation of public institutions and their satellite companies become a central focus of the third anti-corruption campaign with considerable success. According to official statistics, by July 6, 1990, 11,934 companies run by party and government institutions(or 85.8% of the total )had been closed while the remainder was separated from the original public institutions. 49,292 government officials, including retired officials who hold posts in enterprises resigned from these posts. 2. Implementation of budget management on the extrabudget income of various departments from imposing fines and collecting administrative fees. This task has become a focal point of the fourth anti-corruption campaign. According to Wei Jianxing, former head of Central Committee for Discipline Inspection, the separation of government departments' income from their expenditure had been implemented which was regarded as an important step in curbing unhealthy tendency within government departments. 3. Regulations for restricting extravagance and waste within government organs. Such regulations include reducing the number of administrative meetings and files; limiting spending on banquets, cars and office furniture; prohibition of foreign and domestic tourism using public money; prohibition of luxurious entertainment and so on. The fight against extravagance and waste has become another field of battle since 1997. 3)Moral education. Moral education constitutes an important element of these four anti-corruption campaigns the second and the fourth anti-corruption campaign particularly attached great importance to the moral education. The second anti-corruption campaign was also a moral education movement aimed at consolidating and strengthening party organisations. Since the third generation of political leaders have paid great attention to the moral education as a part of their anti-corruption efforts, moral education played an important part in their anti-corruption efforts. The methods for moral education include .1. The whole party, especially senior leaders, were asked to regularly study political theory, particular Deng Xiaoping's theory 'Building socialism with Chinese Characteristics'. Party organisations at various levels were required to educate their members with communist ideals, morality and faith. 2. Party members, especially the senior leaders, were asked to review their behaviour against various anti-corruption rules and to criticise the misconduct of the other party members in party organisation conference. 3 .Government officials who were honest and clean (most of whom are party members) were cited as models and all public officials were asked to follow their examples. 4. Corrupt officials were punished under the appropriate law, party or administrative disciplinary regulation and their behaviour condemned by social opinion. However, just as mentioned above, there are limits to moral education. Since senior officials and the ordinary party members are actually not equal within party organizations, the wrongdoings of senior officials are not easily be criticised or checked by other party members. Moreover, because of the lack of checks and balance of power , the lack of transparency in much of the behaviours of senior leaders, the limits of self-regulation, it is very difficult for senior officials to set examples, particularly when they are involved in corruption or are universally believed be so. This, in turn, undermines the effectiveness of moral education. Another limit is that the behaviours of model officials are often too perfect to be followed by the other officials. At the opposite extreme, the model officials publicised by the authorities are unrealistic, satisfied with low salaries and a simple life, they work hard, renounce their family lives and handle official business impartially without any fear of offending their relatives and friends. Such perfect models are hard accepting or are modeled, thus further undermining moral education. Conclusion As seen, corruption and anti-corruption have become a serious challenge to the party and the regime in China. In its long history, China developed its own tradition, culture, ethics, political heritages, administrative norms rather different from those of the rest world. Regarding this, China has to find and stride on its own roads to cope with the mounting corruption. But at any extent, the anti-corruption situation is not optimistic. Though more severe punishment has been introduced, and increasingly tough measures have been enhanced to fight against corruption, the results produced seem disappointing. It is argued that the corruption and anti-corruption situation is actually a dilemma for China, therefore the policies, measures and means of anti-corruption doom to be crippled. Generally, China has to try hard to deter the worsening of the situation, but it cannot thoroughly eradicate corruption and make full effort to clean up the hotbed of corruption. The primary reasons are as follows: First, CPC as a leading political strength has changed greatly in its nature as the representative of working class, further it has become a political stakeholder caring most about its own interests and the stability of its the regime. This is because a large part of its members have gained enough from the economic reform and development, and they have become a new social stratum superior economically and politically to other social stratums. Actually the whole ruling elites------bureaucratic practitioners, administrative officials, and party cadres have been integrated into a shared interest network. This determines the nature of the anti-corruption strategy of China. On one hand, anti-corruption policy has to be implemented to pacify the anger of common people and to maintain the moral image of the party and the regime which will finally benefit the new ruling class itself, on the other hand, anti-corruption has to be limited within a scope that might not harm the immediate interests of the new stakeholders. Therefore, rather than taking anti-corruption as a strategy relevant to deepening reform and optimizing governability of the party and state, sometimes anti-corruption was only regarded as a political tactic of manipulating party cadres and government officials, which have negatively impacted the anti-corruption efforts and the results produced. Second, related to the first point, the political structure and institutions are the main barriers to hinter the anti-corruption efforts, however, they are not permitted to be changed. In deed, a string of Chinese leaders have railed against the effect that the widespread corruption has kept on undermining the legitimacy of the party but none have been willing to suggest the kind of structural reforms that would help tackle it.(Saich, 2002. 299) Under the existing political structure and institutions, no real check and balance power can be realized, and neither be permitted. Therefore, though institutional arrangements, such as the Disciplinary Inspection Committee as a party organ, Ministry of Supervision and its branches as government departments, and the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme Procuratorate as legislature organizations, and varieties of other supervision institutions have been established, their functions and practices are rather limited because of their dependent nature. Without the demand, agreement and the coordination of the party committee, they are hard to do anything. A typical dilemma exhibits in the function and work of the disciplinary inspections at all levels of the party organizations. They are in the name responsible for checking and inspecting all the party members at certain branches, however, they are under the leadership of the party committees of the same level. How can they supervise their own authorities? Default of the necessary independence, no anti-corruption institutions can function completely well. Third, leaders in China have always stressed the necessity of rule of law. However, while rules, laws and regulations have been in large number initiated, too many loopholes and weaknesses in them are left to be maneuvered. Further, under the political guidelines of so-called unitary leadership of the party, any laws, rules and regulations are easily to be distorted. As seen, China has not really found the most fundamental means of anti-corruption because it has missed the basic weakness of its political structure and institutions. The most effective way to combat corruption is to build a check and balance power structure, the most important factor of the check and balance power structure is the differentiation and independence of institutions, and the vital element of differentiation and independence of institutions is democracy. Thus, democracy is the final remedy of corruption China should resort to. Democratic conception, democratic polity, democratic lifestyle should be the primary factors China should pursue if it wants to win the battle of fighting against corruption.