Focus of Sixth Plenum on Party discipline

MA XUEJING/CHINA DAILY

Editor's note: The politically significant four-day Sixth Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee ended on Thursday, highlighting the challenges the Party faces and how it intends to strengthen strict Party governance. Following are the views of media outlets and commentators on the plenum:

Anti-graft drive to be lasting

The Sixth Plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee, held on Oct 24-27, reflected the country's top leadership's determination to strictly regulate Party members, says an opinion article in Qiushi magazine, adding that the ongoing crackdown on corruption will become a permanent measure. Excerpts:

The ongoing anti-corruption campaign shows the top leadership's firm determination to eliminate corrupt practices from politics. But the mission cannot be achieved overnight, because corruption has existed in political systems for thousands of years. The top leadership needs to make continuous and hard efforts to root out corruption from the political field. It is exactly what the Sixth Plenum focused on.

The top leadership will take comprehensive steps, instead of a single measure, to strengthen Party discipline. Since the latest nation-wide anti-corruption campaign was launched in 2012, multiple measures, including regulating power, strengthening officials' political education and promoting transparency, have been taken in the fight against corruption. In the future, these measures will become more comprehensive and cohesive.

Also, the measures will become a permanent, as opposed to temporary, course of action. Some call the current anti-corruption efforts "a storm", but the storm will never pass. The measures may be rather strict, but they are necessary. Only with the firm determination can the Party root out corruption from society and ensure the long-term prosperity of the nation.

Wealth gap poses a challenge

China has made unprecedented progress on the economic and social fronts, but the wealth gap that has emerged poses a challenge to the Communist Party of China in its fight against corruption, says Gong Yun, a researcher in Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in an article on gmw.cn. Excerpts:

Strict discipline has always distinguished the CPC from all other political parties. It was strict discipline and its stern implementation that helped the Party lead the revolution in 1949 and achieve rapid economic development over the past more than three decades.

China has been building a socialist market economy, which is an unprecedented endeavor. The goal is glorious, but because of the new conditions today, the Party faces a huge challenge in strictly regulating its members, especially officials at various levels who wield power.

Given the economic prosperity of the country, Party officials may fall prey to the lure of the lucre, especially when bribes in millions of yuan can be made.

Besides, some businesspeople earn astronomical amounts of money. They, along with those white-collar workers with huge incomes, have further widened the wealth gap in society. These facts, too, could influence Party officials to trade power for money.

The solution to this problem lies in strengthening Party discipline. So it is time for the Party to reiterate the importance of political discipline to its members. For example, Party discipline requires various levels of Party organizations to hold regular meetings so that they can point out each other's mistakes. But in some places such meetings have become mutual-praise gatherings. The good, old tradition has to be re-emphasized to let every Party member realize the importance of discipline.