Chongqing municipality announced a pilot plan this week requiring judicial officials in important positions to declare their assets - thus becoming the highest-level government to make such a mandate.
Only a handful of counties and towns have previously required officials to declare their assets, a move the public has long regarded as necessary to combat corruption. Chongqing is the first provincial-level government to do so, following months of a high-profile crackdown on triad activities, which led to the fall of gangsters and corrupt officials.
Nearly 3,000 people have been detained. According to a report after the municipality's Communist Party meeting this week, four bureau-level and 14 county-level judicial officials have been sacked or implicated.
Chongqing People's High Court former judge Wu Xiaoqing, who reportedly committed suicide while in detention last week, was found to have received more than 3.5 million yuan (HK$4 million) in bribes over 10 years and had more than 5 million yuan from unknown sources.
Details of the measure remain sketchy. Some mainland anti-corruption experts are worried that this might end up a show like other pilot schemes implemented since the beginning of the year.
For example, Zhejiang's Cixi county asked 675 vice-township-level cadres in February to declare items including ownership of real estate, cars, and the occupation and education status of family and children. However, the publication of the information is limited to a three-day public notice within each government unit.
Hunan's Liuyang county broadened the extent of the declaration in March to include sums used for work-related travel and monies received for weddings or funerals, when it declared the assets of its township-level officials in the media. However, certain county-level officials may be exempt from the media publication.