Apec to set up network to track down and extradite corrupt officials
Apec will reveal details in the next few days of an unprecedented cross-border network to pursue and extradite corrupt officials.
Apec will reveal details in the next few days of an unprecedented cross-border network to pursue and extradite corrupt officials.
It will be covered by a declaration leaders gathering in Beijing next week for the Apec summit are expected to sign to fight corruption in the Asia-Pacific.
Analysts said the push was a warning to corrupt Chinese officials but the process would be complicated by the lack of extradition treaties between China and some countries in the region.
Apec Secretariat executive director Alan Bollard said yesterday that law enforcement agencies across the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's economies would link up for the first time to pass on cases to each other, work out ways to prosecute and convict offenders, and recover assets smuggled overseas.
Bollard said the move would mark a shift from policy to practice but still had to be approved by the member countries.
"Now, we have practitioners who [will] get together to talk about particular cases and look at sharing information and sharing powers provided that can be done in line with the laws of the individual economies," Bollard said.
Zhang Lijun, chairman of the China Apec Development Council, said: "You will know the details within the next two days … There will be macro arrangements, and micro assistance between countries."
The cross-border repatriation push dovetails with President Xi Jinping's domestic campaign against corruption and the launch of Operation Fox Hunt in July to track down corrupt officials fleeing overseas with their ill-gotten gains.
Zhang Jianping, a researcher from the National Development and Reform Commission, said Beijing had been an "active joint initiator" of the network, and the party's top anti-graft organ, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, would play an active role in its roll-out.
Zhu Lijia, a professor of public policy from the Chinese Academy of Governance, said greater international cooperation on the graft fight would benefit all the economies involved. He said the network's focus would be on extradition and pursuit of assets.
"It's also about putting all officials under psychological pressure, warning they can no longer fly off with government funds."
But New York University law professor Jerome Cohen said many corrupt Chinese officials were thought to have fled to countries that did not have extradition treaties with China.
"Liberal democracies are wary of making extradition treaties ... that would provide for sending Chinese nationals back for prosecution and trial by a legal system that fails to meet international standards of due process of law," Cohen said.
State media have often said that the United States, Australia, and Canada are popular destinations for corrupt officials and their money but none has an extradition treaty with China
