China suspended an international anti-corruption task force earlier this year after taking over the G20 presidency, according to six individuals in the group, who called it a setback to global efforts to crack down on shell companies used to conceal assets.
The so-called “Business 20” Anti-Corruption Task Force, comprising businesses and civil society groups, had been drawing up G20 policies for increasing the transparency of offshore financial structures, among other work, but the body was scrapped in late January because Chinese companies declined to participate, the sources said.
China is one of several nations under pressure to share data on paper companies after the “Panama Papers,” documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that revealed how the rich and powerful use such structures to avoid taxes and in some cases conceal ill-gotten gains. They were published by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other international news outlets.
The B20, the G20’s business outreach arm, and its various task forces are by convention led by companies from the nation holding the presidency.
The state-run China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), this year’s head of the B20, did not provide an explanation for suspending the anti-corruption task force and did not respond to several e-mails, faxes and telephone calls requesting comment, but three people who had worked on the task force, who represented international, US and European institutions, said the trade group could not persuade a Chinese company to take on the role of leading the task force, even though about 150,000 Chinese businesses are effectively state-run.
The sources cited the CCPIT as saying a one-off anti-corruption convention to be held later this month would be a sufficient substitute, despite strong lobbying from international businesses and nongovernmental organizations.
“It’s a disappointing indictment on the environment in China that no company was willing to step forward,” one of the sources said. “This is a critical agenda and we had built up momentum, and this decision has taken the wind out of the sails.”
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.
Beijing has been trying to get increased international cooperation to hunt down suspected corrupt officials who have fled overseas since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) began a war against deeply rooted graft more than three years ago, but Western nations have been reluctant to help, not wanting to send people back to a nation where rights groups say mistreatment of criminal suspects remains a problem, and also complaining China is unwilling to provide proof of their crimes.
However, some of the participants on the task force said they believed the Chinese government wanted to sharpen its focus this year and remained committed to clamping down on corruption.
“We are very happy with the functioning of the anti-corruption workstream within the B20 process,” said Andrew Wilson, global communications director at the International Chamber of Commerce, which had several executives on the task force.
According to the B20 official Web site, anti-corruption efforts would comprise a forum to “continue previous efforts toward enhancing anti-corruption international cooperation, assisting anti-corruption efforts at enterprises and increasing anti-corruption dialogue between G20 and B20.”
The sources and three other people on the task force said they had continued their work behind the scenes in the expectation Germany, the next G20 president, would revive the body.
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