The fifth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held from Oct 26 to 29 in Beijing, adopted a resolution on persevering with full and rigorous Party self-governance.
This demonstrates the importance the CPC attaches to national discipline inspections and its determination to make consistent efforts to fight corruption.
China boasts a long history of sending inspection groups to check the conduct of ministries and local governments. When it became a unified country more than 2,000 years ago, dispatching central-government inspectors to supervise local officials became an institutional practice, aimed at ensuring their loyalty to the government and the integrity of local governance. Some emperors even traveled incognito to inspect local conditions firsthand.
Movies and TV series about such inspection and travel stories are a hit among viewers even today.
Since taking the reins of government in 1949, the CPC has continued that tradition, sending inspection groups to different regions and organizations now and then.
Intra-Party inspection became institutionalized in 1996 when a strengthened Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC kicked off systematic inspections — though the arrangements remained random and mostly targeted at problems.
When inspection groups were dispatched to some ministries and provinces in 2012, many thought it was just part of an anti-corruption campaign launched once every few years.
But problematic officials and organizations soon regretted their misjudgment.
Since 2012, two rounds of inspection, each lasting two to three months, have been conducted each year on average. In the past decade or so, many ministries and provinces have been subjected to three rounds of "political physical checkups".
The inspections are directly arranged by the CPC Central Committee, with the inspectors coming from different provincial regions and government departments including those in charge of discipline, organizational work and auditing. The group leaders are mostly officials above vice-ministerial level.
The inspectors work together during the inspection period before returning to their former positions.
The "temporary arrangement" is designed to prevent any possible intercession that may influence the inspections and investigations.
News about a new round of inspection is widely published to make sure that all citizens in the targeted provinces and organizations are clear about it.
On arriving at the chosen organization or region, the inspectors' addresses, phone numbers and email addresses are made known to the public while special letter boxes are set up, with the keys held by the inspectors.
Such arrangements are designed to invite public complaints about local or inter-organization problems. In fact, many clues about officials' suspected misconduct or even crimes are collected through these channels.
These measures have proved fruitful. In the past 14 years, the inspectors have found that some provincial-level organizations failed to implement Party policies or had violated Party rules.
Hundreds of high-ranking officials (above vice-minister level) have been disciplined by the Party for corruption. Many of them have been handed over to the police for criminal investigation. It is believed that China has about 4,000 high-ranking officials.
Xinhua reported that in the first nine months of this year, as many as 73 cases involving high-ranking officials were registered and handled by the Party and governmental discipline departments.
While the central inspection groups focused on high-level organizations and high-ranking officials, the country's ministries and provinces copied the inspection model and sent their inspectors to check the lower-level governments and officials.
As a result, also in the first nine months of this year, more than 4,000 bureau-level officials were disciplined.
Many, if not most, of the relevant anomalies, I believe, were first noticed by the inspectors. I give my thumbs-up to them for their efforts in fighting corruption and in protecting the interests of our people, our Party and our country.
Realizing the increasing importance of inspections, many government organizations, local governments and even State-owned enterprises are taking up the weapon to tackle corruption in market administration, environmental protection and food security, etc.
The other day when I was taking a bus in Beijing, a man wearing an armband got on and walked from the front to the rear of the bus, his eyes scrutinizing everything. When I managed to read the Chinese characters on his armband clearly, I realized that the concept of inspection has sunk deep into our society. The characters read: bus inspector.
The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily.
kangbing@chinadaily.com.cn
