With the recent amendment to china's criminal law coming into being, a fresh wave of anti-graft crusades has been set up, as the newly added articles of the criminal law further sharpened the spearhead directing not only the corruptive officials and the official crimes, but the grafters and embezzlers' relatives and friends close to them, including those retired officials who have been abusing the influence and relations cultivated when in office. These people, although staying out of power, or remaining 'in shadow' as is described by ordinary citizens, have aggravated the country's already threatening official corruption, which has been taken as the cancerous cells endangering the body of the country.
But China is by no means exclusive to the official malpractice and power abuse. The linchpin of the problem is that China is at the very stage of the social transformation, and particularly in recent years, with the economic development placed as the top priority of the governments at different levels, the crooked officials have been misusing or embezzling the public fund by taking advantage of loopholes in the related laws and policies. More over, the channels of graft and embezzlement have in these years turned out more assorted and secretive, and it is hard to inspect and plug up in a short time.
It also looms large that the relations net easily accessible to officials in power has trapped a considerably number of otherwise eminent and hardworking officials. Many fallen officials are allegedly accused of seeking illegal favors for their families and close friends. When put to trials, the officials in question would most probably express their regret or embarrassment, saying they were allured to commit crimes, which will be definitely poured scorn upon by the ordinary public, as they are the real victims to the official crimes.
The Central Government has all along pledged to fight official corruption and embezzlement to the finish, but many measures taken so far can hardly come to fruition. It seems a tendency to build a mature judicial system with more humanitarian considerations and, on this basis, punitive policies would incline to ease up. Even with the severe punishment in presence, which could scare away some potentially greedy officials, they are none but something like a straw man in the rice field, which cannot function in a long run. Perhaps there is no panacea in existence to cure the persistent ailment.
Nevertheless, nothing is incurable, and 'for each devil, there must be a deadly weapon particularly to attack it,' as an old saying goes. For shadowy official crimes, the piecing sunshine will be its mortal enemy. Only by governing in sunshine, can the shadow retreat, and the clean and effective governance be ensured.
China's government has already advocated the enactment of the service-oriented public power system featuring 'fair, just and transparent,' but unfortunately, its implementation proves far from effective. The public grievances cannot be satisfactorily addressed without the sound operation of the legal and public power systems.
Therefore the recently staged seventh amendment to the criminal law has captured much of the public attention, and people pin their hopes on its effectiveness in curbing graft and other official crimes.
By People's Daily Online
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