Seeking to halt a recent increase in bank corruption, China published rules on Monday offering generous rewards to bank employees who expose corruption.
Bank managers will also be regularly rotated to different posts and monitored for involvement in pornography, gambling and drugs under the rules, which were issued by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Other steps announced included making senior managers "legally responsible" for major fraud cases; establishing a system of reporting on the stock investments of managers and top personnel; and establishing new checks on loan approvals.
"There's been a succession of major cases due to weaknesses in risk management and internal controls, and this had led to major capital losses from banks," a commission official told Xinhua, the official news agency, in a statement that appeared in the Chinese press on Monday. Xinhua did not identify the official.
The rules appear to be an effort to bolster confidence in China's state-owned banks after a string of scandals tarnished plans to issue stock. Late last year, the Bank of China disclosed that employees in one branch in Beijing alone had stolen 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million); last month, the China Construction Bank revealed that employees in northeastern China had embezzled 33 million yuan; and a few days ago, the Agricultural Bank of China said that 43 employees in Baotou, also in the northeast, were under investigation after the disappearance of 115 million yuan.
On Sunday, the Bank of China announced that an employee in the northeastern city of Dalian had been arrested after embezzling 50 million yuan to gamble on soccer matches. Last week, it was disclosed that Zhang Enzhao (張恩照), who resigned this month as president of the China Construction Bank, was being sued in a US court over allegations that he took bribes from an American contractor.
"The cases show the auditors are getting serious and going through the banks' books," said Stephen Green, a senior economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai. "But you'd have to be a fool to believe that Chinese banks are already out of the woods."
The government is pressing banks to prepare for the arrival of international banks in 2007, when WTO rules require China to lift many restrictions on the entry of foreign banks.
Tang Shuangning (
Tang warned that the Agricultural Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China faced special difficulties as they prepared to issue equity. A successful revamping of Agricultural Bank depends on reform of China's troubled rural finance sector, and renewal at the Industrial and Commercial Bank depends on reforming state-owned businesses, he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat