Hu Jintao vows to tighten crackdown on corruption

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has vowed to tighten a crackdown on rampant corruption amid the growing number of arrests of top Communist Party officials and senior judges around the country for graft and other misdeeds.

Hu, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party, has warned that unless corruption is brought under control it will undermine the party's control in the country.

The government faces an "arduous fight against corruption," Hu said in comments carried yesterday on the front pages of major newspapers.

"The party and government at all levels must develop their anti-corruption work," Hu said in a speech delivered to the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which ended a three-day meeting in Beijing yesterday.

A string of arrests last year highlighted the depth of the graft problem, with former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu (陳良宇) arrested and expelled from the party's powerful Politburo in connection with a scandal over alleged misuse of more than 3 billion yuan (US$380 million) in pension funds.

He was the highest-level official arrested for corruption in a decade, and his case followed that of Liu Zhihua (劉志華), a former Beijing vice mayor in charge of overseeing Olympic construction projects who was fired and handed over to prosecutors to face bribery charges.

Beijing officials have said that Liu's alleged misdeeds did not involve Olympic projects, but his dismissal has put a cloud over preparations for next year's Olympics.

Liu "took several million yuan in bribes and helped his mistress to seek profit in projects," state media has reported.

Hu said corruption was a threat to China's economic, political and cultural development.

"We must deepen anti-corruption efforts and build a clean government," he said, although he acknowledged that calls to crack down on corruption were often ignored by local officials.

There have been frequent protests, some violent, in recent years in villages around the country where residents have reacted to land seizures and other corrupt acts by local authorities.

"We must realize how essential it is to improve [party] cadres' work style. This is a key challenge for the Communist Party," Hu said.

The official Xinhua news agency said in the 12 months to last June, more than 3,100 commercial bribery cases were uncovered involving government employees, worth 968 million yuan.

China's top auditor said earlier this month that fighting corruption in construction projects for next year's Olympic Games would be a priority for his agency this year.