China to keep up overseas graft hunt down to last fugitive – even if ill-gotten gains are gone
Anti-corruption watchdog pledges to track down and return all suspects, regardless of how long it takes and where they hide
The Communist Party’s corruption watchdog has vowed to track down and return fugitives from overseas, even if they have spent all their ill-gotten gains.
In an article published by a website affiliated with the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on Monday, the anti-graft watchdog said President Xi Jinping, who is also party general secretary, was using meetings with foreign leaders to increase cooperation on repatriation of fugitives.
“No matter if it’s during formal visits or international conferences, General Secretary Xi Jinping will raise the issue about cooperation ... to repatriate fugitives and retrieve their fortunes, whenever and wherever he comes across foreign state leaders,” it said.
Extraditing fugitives and recovering illicit assets has become one of the commission’s top jobs, especially since Xi came to power and his political ally Wang Qishan took the helm of the graft-busting agency in late 2012.
As part of this push, China has signed repatriation deals with 39 countries.
“[We] must send those fugitives back to the homeland before giving them severe penalties in accordance with party discipline and the country’s laws, even if they have wiped out almost all the money they corruptly took,” the article said.
Fleeing the country is no longer a way out
“We must show these corrupt people that foreign countries are by no means a haven for the evasion of ... responsibility ... They will definitely be subject to investigation, which means fleeing the country is no longer a way out.”
In another article in the Communist Party journal Qiushi, CCDI deputy head and Minister of Supervision Huang Shuxian said more efforts would be made to sign extradition deals with more countries.
Huang also said more routine checks on cadres and stricter implementation of rules about cadres’ spouses and children moving overseas were needed.
Beijing said earlier this year it was in talks with Washington over the repatriation of Ling Wancheng, who went to the US after his brother Ling Jihua, a one-time aide to former president Hu Jintao, became caught in Xi’s anti-graft campaign.
In an apparent show of its resolution to hunt fugitives, Beijing named former assistant minister of foreign affairs Liu Jianchao as the new director of the CCDI’s International Cooperation Bureau in September.
Liu said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in March that since the start of the “Skynet” operation last year, more than 1,000 fugitives had been repatriated, including more than 240 public servants. Other media reported a total of 3 billion yuan (HK$3.5 billion) in illicit gains had been recovered.
Along with the launch of the “Skynet 2016” operation, the agency vowed to keep up the hunt for fugitives, no matter where they hid or if there was only one still on the run.
