Supervision of officials will step up

China will continue its high pressure against corruption next year, strengthen supervision and severely punish officials who break Party rules, according to the top leadership.

A pilot reform program for an integrated supervision system will also be on next year's anti-graft agenda, according to a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Wednesday.

The meeting, presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, also decided that the seventh plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country's discipline watchdog, will be held in Beijing from Jan 6 to 8.

At the meeting, members of the Political Bureau listened to the CCDI's work report for 2016 and provided arrangements for combating corruption and building up clean government next year.

The Party has gained the upper hand in the fight against corruption, and "the high pressure against graft will be maintained next year", according to a news release from the meeting.

Punishment for violators will be even harsher, it said.

Anti-graft officers are required to report in a timely manner any clues about officials who might be corrupt. If they help to conceal such information, they will be held accountable as well, according to the release.

Moreover, the meeting decided to require the reform of the supervision system to be pushed forward firmly and steadily next year to make sure that all reform targets are met.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the top legislature, approved a pilot reform program on Sunday to produce an integrated supervision system that will be more authoritative and efficient.

New supervision committees will be tested in Beijing as well as Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces and will gradually be expanded across the country.

According to the NPC decision, the committees will integrate the supervision and corruption prevention departments, as well as People's Procuratorate departments, for handling bribery and dereliction of duty cases or for prevention of duty-related crimes.

The committees will supervise the duty performance, integrity and ethical conduct of public servants. They will investigate and punish corruption and other job-related offenses, and will transfer cases involving suspected criminal offenses to procuratorates.

All who exercise public power will be supervised by the new committees, according to the decision.

According to CCDI statistics, in the first 11 months of this year, 50,008 Party officials were investigated for breaking Party austerity rules, 37,500 of whom received Party or administrative penalties.

No matter who breaks Party discipline, he or she should be exposed to the public, said Song Dajun, a senior official from the CCDI's Discipline Supervision Department.

CCDI figures show that so far this year, 29,100 such cases, involving more than 43,100 people, have been made public, with the officials' names listed.

Gao Bo, a political researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, "I believe anti-graft officers will pay more attention to corrupt officials at the grass roots to make sure that all people share the anti-graft success and its benefits," he said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.