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Most won't report corruption, survey finds

By Zhang Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-18 08:18

A majority of Chinese people who participated in a recent survey said they did not feel obligated to report cases of corruption to the authorities.

Less than half of 3,259 people polled in the survey, conducted by the China Youth Daily, felt it is necessary to report corruption.

"Over the past three decades of reform and opening up, we have had 10 anti-corruption heroes, who set an example for individuals to fight against the social evil, and exposed serious problems in high-level government functioning," said He Zengke, director of the Contemporary Marxism Research Center.

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"But nine of them either faced threats or became victims of revenge," He said.

Premier Wen Jiabao, in his recent address to the National People's Congress (NPC), said "corruption remains a serious problem" in the country.

An online survey conducted by Xinhua days ago ranked "fighting corruption" as the top priority for the country's residents.

However, the China Youth Daily tells another story.

More than 30 percent of those polled did not feel obligated to report cases of corruption, while about 30 percent of them were uncertain if they would.

"Fighting corruption is not a moral obligation. It is everyone's legal obligation," said Huang Zhongjie, a law student at the China University of Political Science and Law. China's Prosecutor-General Cao Jianming said earlier this month that 2,687 government officials were investigated last year for corruption and infringing people's rights.

Government officials were caught in 10,315 cases of commercial bribery, involving more than 2.1 billion yuan, Cao said.

Thousands of Internet users expressed the need to sweep away corrupt practices in the government and stressed the need to protect the whistle-blowers on Tencent, one of China's biggest Internet portals.

A web user from Hebei province said, "I tried reporting corruption cases to the local authorities before, but my identity was disclosed to the accused each time."

"The real victory would be to set up a proper system to report corruption, which can make it convenient for ordinary people to file their complaints,"He said.

"But it is important the identity of the complainants is protected."