China issues white paper on human rights

Fight against corruption contributes to China's democracy

In 2013 the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government further intensified their efforts to combat corruption, said the report on China's human rights in 2013.

They put power, government operations and personnel management under institutional checks to ensure that the people oversee the exercise of power and that power is exercised in a transparent manner, the report said.

"Building political integrity is the premise of the effective operation of a democratic system," the report said.

The central government decentralized and canceled 416 items of administrative approvals in 2013, as part of the institutional reform of the State Council.

The CPC Central Committee issued the Work Plan for Establishing and Improving the System of Preventing and Punishing Corruption (2013-2017).

In 2013 procuratorates at all levels investigated 37,551 graft cases involving 51,306 suspects, up 9.4 percent and 8.4 percent respectively from 2012.

China investigated 2,581 cases of embezzlement, bribery and appropriation of public funds, each involving over 1 million yuan, and 2,871 officials at and above the county level, including eight at the provincial or ministerial level.

Courts also intensified efforts to punish embezzlement and bribery crimes. They closed the trials of 29,000 cases of embezzlement, bribery, dereliction of duty and infringement of rights, and convicted 31,000 people.

Central govt injects 200b yuan subsidy for housing projects

The Chinese central government appropriated 200.3 billion yuan in 2013 to help facilitate the building of government-subsidized housing, the rebuilding of dilapidated areas and related infrastructure.

In 2013, construction of 6.6 million government-subsidized housing units and housing units in dilapidated areas started, and 5.4 million were basically finished, according to the report.

Cities at prefectural level and above had all worked out the conditions, procedures and waiting rules for government-subsidized housing applications by migrant workers, and the government-subsidized housing system had expanded to cover not only households with permanent urban residency but all the resident population in urban areas, the report said.

China continued to promote the renovation of rural housing, renovating 2.66 million dilapidated rural houses in 2013, figures from the report show.

Internet expands freedom of speech

A government report on China's human rights said Monday that Internet has "dramatically" expanded the space of freedom of speech.

Chinese netizens post and forward 250 million microblog messages and over 20 billion WeChat and other instant messages every day.

Internet has become one of the most important channels for the public to express its opinion, the report said.

"Chinese people enjoy extensive freedom of speech," the report said. "Within the range allowed by the Constitution and other laws, the public can discuss political issues freely."

The public can express opinions through Internet forums, blogs, personal webpages, social networks, online literature, online videos and other Internet platforms, according to the report.

The report quoted the statistics from seven websites including Sina and Tencent as saying that, among the 20 topics that received the most attention on line in 2013, the top 12 received over 2 million posts each, and the top one over 45 million posts.

Chinese netizens discussed a wide range of topics, including lawsuits, people's livelihood, individual rights and interests protection, doctor-patient disputes, and corruption, the report said.

By the end of 2013, the number of netizens in China reached 618 million and Internet coverage rate 45.8 percent, according to the report.

The country now has about 120 million Internet forum or bulletin board system (BBS) users, 437 million blog and personal webpage users and 278 million social network users.

Effective realization of freedom of speech ensures that the public oversee the government, the report said.

Many local government websites in China have mailboxes to receive letters from the public, while the central discipline inspection agency, Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate have opened tip-off websites.