China’s Communist Party considers code of conduct for senior cadres after purge of high-level officials
Communist Party leaders are on a soul-searching mission to come up with ways to enforce discipline at the top after a series of high-profile graft cases, a former Central Party School official said.
The leaders were also considering whether to introduce a code of conduct for senior cadres, the Southern Metropolis News on Wednesday quoted Li Junru, a retired vice-president of the Central Party School, as saying.
“Since the launch of the [administration’s] anti-corruption campaign, problems have been found with senior leaders including Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Xu Caihou, Ling Jihua and Su Rong,” Li said. “It prompted the party’s Central Committee to start thinking about how to manage party cadres holding top office in the party and country.”
Li made the comments on Tuesday at a conference on governance organised by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the China Centre for Contemporary World Studies. It was attended by 80 specialists from China and overseas.
In response to a question about corruption stemming from the leadership’s monopoly on power, Li said party leaders were reflecting on the corruption cases of senior officials, the report said.
The result of that reflection was a plan to draft a code of conduct for 2,000-plus senior officials, including the 25 Politburo members, Li said on the conference’s sidelines. “Senior cadres are also party members and they should also be subject to party discipline and the law,” he said.
Li did not give details of the rules in making, but analysts said senior officials should be placed under stricter scrutiny focusing on the check on their power.
Peking University governance expert Zhuang Deshui said families of officials also benefited from cadres’ perks, which grew as they rose in ranking. “So the constraints on power should also apply to the people around them. Spouses and children of senior officials should not run businesses and officials should reveal their relatives’ jobs and income to the public,” Zhuang said.
But it all rested on how the rules were applied, he said.
“Implementing rules targeting senior officials is like asking top leaders to operate on themselves. The key lies with the core members of the Politburo. It depends on whether they have the political resolve to be role models,” he said.
Zhu Lijia, from the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the party should first ensure application of the basic principles of its constitution – which covered all party members – before introducing rules for a specific group of cadres. “If senior officials can’t even fulfil the requirements for an ordinary party member, how can they reach higher standards?”
