Asia-Pacific Newsweek
December 4, 2024
Chongqing – In 2024, corruption cases against rural and town officials in China surged as anti-corruption efforts intensified in the world’s second-largest economy.
Official data shows that in the first nine months of 2024, the number of cases against village committee directors increased by 31,000 annually, or 67.4%, to 77,000.
Corruption cases involving township officials have also increased significantly. Compared with the same period in 2023, there were 24,000 more cases from January to September, an increase of 36.9%, to 89,000 cases.
In the first nine months of 2024, China investigated and dealt with a total of 642,000 corruption cases, up from 626,000 in the whole of 2023.
But what particularly worries Li Xi, China's anti-corruption czar and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, is the scourge of corruption in rural areas.
In a speech on November 20, he urged officials to engage more deeply with grassroots members and encouraged the public to pay attention to how local officials use public funds.
Since taking office in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has made anti-corruption his signature public policy.
Analysts told The Straits Times that the surge in corruption cases comes amid tighter inspections, which have become a way for officials to show that their work is in line with Xi Jinping's priorities.
“It's the easiest way to show your boss that you're doing your job,” said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Professor Wu, who studies public governance in Greater China, added: “But such a high increase this year also shows that there is still a lot of work to be done in fighting corruption.”
In 2023, China scored 42 points (out of 100) on the global corruption barometer of the global non-profit organization Transparency International, a drop of 3 points from 2022, ranking 76th among 180 countries and regions. The organization aims to increase government transparency around the world.
But China's latest score is 42 points, 3 points higher than its score in 2012.
An analysis by Hunan University of 567 corruption cases announced by the central government from 2015 to 2020 showed that fraud and corruption are the most common forms of corruption in rural China.
An inspection committee in the eastern Shandong province revealed in April this year that a former village party secretary in the village misappropriated 109,000 yuan (S$20,110) in agricultural subsidies between March 2021 and October 2023 and filed false insurance claims.
There was also a case in which the director of a village committee in Shanxi Province applied for poverty alleviation funds in the name of a relative. Between 2014 and 2024, he embezzled more than 200,000 yuan.
Experts told local media that corruption in rural China will be difficult to eradicate due to weak regulations, a lack of personnel with accounting training and opaque financial disclosures.
Officials in towns and villages also reportedly colluded to defraud public funds.
Experts urge stricter financial disclosure requirements, independent oversight of township finances and better mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest.
For example, the village secretary position is the highest-ranking Communist Party member in China's smallest administrative region and often has broad discretion in deciding how to allocate public funds.
China's recent economic uncertainty may also lead to an increase in corruption cases this year.
Professor Shiweide, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, said that due to widespread defaults in smaller local governments, “many party cadres may be forced to become corrupt.”
Local governments, which had previously relied on land sales as a source of funding, have been hit hard as Beijing cracked down on real estate developers starting in 2020. .
