Focus of Sixth Plenum on Party discipline

Turning point in Party history

The implications of the Sixth Plenum on China's political future will be huge, says Channel News Asia, an English language Asian TV News channel based in Singapore. Excerpts:

The Sixth Plenum of the CPC Central Committee has traditionally focused on reinforcing the Party's political ideology. At the just-concluded Sixth Plenum, top leader Xi Jinping sought to have his governing philosophy written into Party documents.

Xi has vowed to remove corrupt officials from the Party since his first day in office, and his anti-corruption campaign has accounted for tens of thousands of corrupt officials. The crackdown has been so severe that it has caused a dramatic drop in luxury spending. As such, the Sixth Plenum will make sure Xi's campaign to clean up the Party's rank and file will be remembered as a turning point in the Party's history.

Steps toward clean governance

The passage of two documents by the Sixth Plenum aimed at regulating intra-Party political life and strengthening intra-Party supervision will help further improve Party regulations, facilitate the Party to advance "stricter governance" and consolidate its campaign to root out corruption, says a report on Singapore-based zaobao.com. Excerpts:

Immediately after taking office, top leader Xi Jinping launched an unprecedented campaign against corruption, ensnaring "tigers" (corrupt senior officials) such as former security chief Zhou Yongkang, former vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, former director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee Ling Jihua, and many other minister－and province-level officials. But no matter how many "tigers" and "flies" (corrupt lower-level officials) are brought down, corruption cannot be rooted out of society unless the soil breeding corruption is cleansed.

Wang Qishan, chief of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Party's top anti-corruption body, said in 2013 that Party measures aimed at eliminating corruption need time to prove effective. So, in its relentless campaign to trap "tigers", the Party has also issued several ordinances aimed at promoting clean governance.

After almost four years of efforts, bribe-taking by bureaucrats has considerably reduced, as very few officials now dare to indulge in corrupt practices. This remarkable achievement of the country's leadership has also won public support.

Xi has said the top leadership will now restrain the use of power by officials by putting power in the "cage of institution", in order to establish a mechanism to prevent corruption.

The Sixth Plenum, bringing senior officials including the members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Political Bureau Sanding Committee under supervision, is a big key step toward building a comprehensive corruption-preventative mechanism.