China to reform anti-corruption bureau to help in the fight against graft

The central government has approved a plan to beef up the anti-graft team within the national prosecutors' office to better cope with the higher case load, state media has reported.

Manpower levels at the General Office of Anti-Corruption would be increased, and its status would be raised to the level of vice-ministry, Qiu Xueqiang, deputy head of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, was quoted by Xinhua as saying. Experts said the reforms could better enable the office to take on high-ranking officials.

The bureau, which was established in 1995, is responsible for prosecuting cases investigated by the Communist Party's graft-busters, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

Qiu said the bureau in its current form could not fulfil its duties and the reforms were needed to boost its "fighting capacity, credibility and agility".

"The anti-corruption fight is going on everywhere. Either we take down corruption, or corruption takes us down," Qiu said in the Xinhua report, published late on Sunday.

The announcement came as the country's top graft-buster, Wang Qishan , called the fight "a battle [the party] cannot afford to lose" in an opinion piece published in the People's Daily yesterday.

It's "a long-term fight full of complexity and difficulties", Wang warned, and party members must possess "political conviction" and "confidence to win".