China's craze for online anti-corruption

BEIJING - A number of officials have been removed from their posts due to corruption or misconduct after investigations by disciplinary authorities. However, all were exposed by Internet users who found the initial clues that led to investigations.

Chinese netizens are embracing "online anti-corruption", a sign of the country's endeavor to fight wrongdoing.

POWER OF INTERNET

The latest was Yuan Zhanting, mayor of  northwestern capital city of Lanzhou in Gansu province.

Yuan was exposed by netizen Zhou Lubao on Monday at various public events wearing pricey watches, with the most expensive estimated up to 200,000 yuan ($31,746).

The provincial disciplinary authorities have promised to look into the case, which resembles that of Yang Dacai, a work safety official in Shaanxi Province who was sacked in September after Internet users posted photos of him wearing luxury timepieces that he could not afford on his above-board earnings.

In October, Cai Bin, an urban management official in southern Guangdong Province, was dismissed from his post after online postings tipped that he owned 22 houses.

The most lurid scandal is Lei Zhengfu, a district head in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, whose sex video with a female was leaked to the Internet, leading to his sacking within only 63 hours.

The Internet showed its teeth as early as 2009, when Zhou Jiugeng, a former real estate management official in east China's city of Nanjing, was sentenced to 11 years in jail for bribery. It followed an investigation that was spurred by online photos showing him smoking cigarettes of exorbitant prices.

ECHOING THE TOP

Recent exposures of official wrongdoings have also been helped by central government, which has vowed to combat corruption.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) leadership has warned that corruption could lead to the collapse of the Party and the fall of the state.

Xi Jinping, newly elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said in a speech after the 18th CPC National Congress that the Party had to solve problems such as "corruption, being divorced from the people, going through formalities and bureaucracy".