The Communist Party has opened a website to allow the public to expose corruption in the party and government departments - another effort to rein in seemingly out-of-control graft across the country.
Any cases related to disciplinary irregularities, breaches of state policies and laws, improper use of administrative power, and immoral and decadent conduct by party and government officials can be reported through 12388.gov.cn. The website was launched by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Ministry of Supervision.
Until now, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Supreme People's Court and the party's organisation department, which is in charge of nurturing and selecting high-ranking party and government officials, each had their own website for such public reporting. Five months ago, the commission and the Ministry of Supervision released a phone number - 12388 - which can be used nationwide by the public to report government corruption.
On the first day that the supreme procuratorate opened its reporting website in June, so many people visited it to leave reports that the site crashed for nearly 10 hours.
Opening such websites was to be applauded and showed the party's determination to fight corruption, said Hu Xingdou , a commentator at Beijing University of Technology. 'Nowadays, everybody knows corruption in the party and government has worsened to such a point that it has become a matter concerning the party's life and death.'
Research by Professor Yu Jianrong at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that the number of major clashes between people angered mainly by corruption and local governments had increased tenfold to about 90,000 per year from 1993 to 2006. Analysts say the total has probably risen further in the past two years.