Advertisement
Advertisement
The outburst by the CCDI may be a reference to the case of disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang. Photo: AP

China's state-owned enterprises slammed for 'entrapping' officials into corruption

The top anti-graft agency has slammed some executives of state-owned enterprises for using national assets to "besiege officials" - a term analysts believe refers to entrapment.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published the criticism in an article on its website yesterday. It is the first of a series on "pushing SOEs to strictly follow party discipline", as the watchdog continues cracking down on corruption.

The CCDI has identified state-owned enterprises as its focus this year. Twenty-six such businesses were visited in the agency's first round of inspections this year, and another 17 are currently under inspection.

"[Some executives] exploited state-owned resources they handled to form groups and cliques and transfer interests, in order to besiege leading cadres," the article read.

Hunan Normal University law professor Ma Changsheng said this referred to SOE staff gaining control over leading officials through various tactics such as transferring benefits and pushing the cadres to serve the interests of those within the state-owned enterprises.

Chinese Academy of Governance professor Xu Yaotong believed that "besieging officials" meant setting a trap for them to accept bribes.

"State-owned assets have become a huge coffer for bribery," Xu said. "It also shows that the inspection conducted earlier has uncovered a blind spot [of the corruption crackdown]."

Xu noted that such criticism was made with a specific case in mind - that of disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who was sentenced to life in jail for taking bribes, abusing his power and leaking state secrets.

Zhou, the most senior official to fall in decades, spent 30 years working in the country's oil industry, which became his strongest power base. He was a top executive at the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation for 10 years.

"[Zhou] continued to make use of his power base in CNPC after he joined the central government to solicit support for him to work his way up, and to form his power within the party," Xu said.

The article also stressed the need to consider state-owned firms' problems from a "dialectical and historical perspective", referring to what happened after the Cultural Revolution. During the revolution from 1966 to 1976, millions of educated youth were sent to the countryside to work.

These young people, commonly known as "sent-down youths", returned to the cities eventually, but brought with them a set of problems.

"They returned to the cities, with many of them taking over their parents' jobs. Some spouses and children [of the youths] were placed in the same enterprise, causing the long-lasting problem of the concentration of relatives [in SOEs]," the article said.

It also listed some common problems CCDI officials found at the enterprises. These included unfair personnel appointment systems and abuse of public funds for luxury activities.

Post