More fugitives brought back from overseas to face justice

741 of those repatriated were Party members, government officials

China has brought back more fugitives and recovered more illegal assets from overseas this year thanks to a massive anti-corruption campaign, the country's leading anti-graft watchdog said.

In the first 10 months of this year, 1,634 fugitives suspected of corruption-related crimes were brought back to China, up 69 percent year-on-year, and about 2.95 billion yuan ($420 million) of ill-gotten gains was retrieved, up 288 percent, the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group's office for repatriating fugitives said in a news release issued on Monday, which was International Anti-Corruption Day.

Of the total, 741 fugitives were members of the Communist Party of China and government officials, up 201 percent year-on-year. Four were on the Interpol Red Notice list of China's 100 most-wanted corrupt fugitives, the release said.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, China has intensified efforts to fight graft, including hunting down corrupt officials who fled abroad.

The office, under the leadership of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and with the participation of various authorities such as the top court, the top procuratorate and the Foreign Ministry, was established in 2014. A year later, Skynet, an anti-graft manhunt campaign, was launched to track down corrupt fugitives and recover illegal assets abroad.

In 2015, Interpol issued Red Notices for the 100 most-wanted corrupt Chinese fugitives. Sixty have been returned to the country, according to figures released on Monday.

Last year, China also upgraded its anti-graft mechanism by setting up the National Supervisory Commission. The commission not only integrated anti-corruption authorities in China, but also coordinated with law enforcement agencies from other countries, such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which resulted in breakthroughs in some major cases, the release said.

Huang Feng, a professor of international criminal law at Beijing Normal University, said the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand remain the four main nations with whom China should increase legal cooperation to hunt down fugitives and recover ill-gotten gains.

He also suggested the government and judicial authorities should showcase the rule of law at home to elicit more international cooperation in returning corrupt fugitives from overseas.