China's ruling Communist Party yesterday issued a new set of regulations on fighting internal corruption, championing the rules as the embodiment of the party's effort to police itself without the need for democratic checks and balances or an open press.
Authorites also announced a fresh crackdown on unsafe mining operations
"The regulations attach great importance to carry forward democracy and strengthen supervision within the party, while safeguarding party unity and advancement," the People's Daily, the party mouthpiece, said.
State-controlled Xinhua News Agency said that it was the first time the party had openly published rules on fighting corruption within its ranks.
"Its promulgation means the party has decided to base its anti-corruption efforts on stringent disciplinary rules rather than some party leader's political will," the agency said.
The 47-article regulations, which is not legally binding by Chinese law, lays out a slew of rules on how to deal with supervisory issues within the 68 million member party, including the role of party leaders in discussing and listening to opinions of lower-level cadres.
The regulations also stipulate that the media would remain under party control when reporting on corruption or malfeance amongst the ruling elite.
"Under the leadership of the party, the news media will play a role in supervision [of the party] through public opinion in accordance with relevant regulations and procedures and after internal digression or public reports," it said. "The news media must support party principles."
According to Joseph Cheng (鄭宇碩), a leading China political analyst at the City University of Hong Kong, the rules further underscore the party's determination to confront corruption internally and not through democratic political reforms.
"The party has all along refused measures that will dilute the power of the party," Cheng said.
"They have been very slow in accepting supervision from the media or by investigation by the people's congress system [China's legislature], these regulations reflect this reluctance," he said.
According to Xinhua, official corruption has steadily increased as the party has overseen the 20-year shift from a planned Stalinist economy to a market-oriented economy.
The numbers of party members disciplined for corruption from 1992 to 1997 stood at 669,300 but increased by 26 percent to 846,150 between 1998 to 2002, it said.
"The corruption seedbed still exists and the country's corruption situation remains severe and the anti-corruption task remains arduous," Xinhua quoted President Hu Jintao (
Meanwhile, Beijing has announced a nationwide crackdown aimed at improving safety in its mines, schools and other public facilities after a pair of weekend fires killed 93 people.
The announcement late Tuesday adds to a string of campaigns by the government in recent years -- usually with little effect -- to reduce the carnage in factories and mines and on roads.
In the new campaign, local officials were ordered to "step up their measures ... to prevent any major accidents involving great human and property losses," Xinhua said.
Densely populated Jiangxi Province ordered coal mines to invest at least 6 yuan (US$0.72) in safety measures for each tonne of coal mined, Xinhua said.
Authorities plan to require factories and others to pay more compensation for injuries and deaths in order to give them an incentive to invest in safety, Xinhua said.
The report didn't give any other details of possible tighter safety rules or enforcement measures.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to