Punish bribe-givers severely to bring an end to corruption

The draft amendment to the Criminal Law deliberated by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has made further improvements to the provisions on curbing crimes related to bribe-giving.

"Investigating both bribe-takers and bribe-givers" is the principle repeatedly emphasized by the top authorities in the fight against corruption. In 2021 in particular, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and other departments jointly issued a guideline on further promoting the investigation against both bribe-taking and bribe-giving.

Such a principle must be implemented at the criminal law level to provide legal support for handling relevant cases. The country must break the stereotyped concept that it heavily cracks down on those taking bribes while tolerating the bribe-givers, and make people realize the harm bribery does to the political ecology. Bribe-giving and bribe-taking are like twins; and without the former, there would be no latter. Therefore, to combat power-induced corruption, the country must insist that both are investigated.

Currently, the provisions under the Criminal Law for punishing bribe-givers are weaker than those for punishing bribe-takers.

Judging by the number of cases received in the courts in recent years, the ratio of bribe-giving to bribe-taking is 1:3 or even 1:4. Considering that there are usually many bribe-givers involved in a case of bribery, a considerable number of bribe-givers actually manage to evade punishment.

In order to eradicate corruption, it is necessary to crack down on bribe-taking and bribe-giving with equal intensity.

Inspiringly, the draft amendment to the Criminal Law makes a big stride in this direction. It not only adjusts the starting point and penalty grade for the crimes related to those who offer bribes, but also specifies six situations in which bribe-givers will be severely penalized, including offering bribes repeatedly or to multiple people.

It also states that those who offer bribes to gain benefits from important construction projects or those related to the environmental, finance, social insurance, security, food, drug, disaster relief, education or healthcare sectors will be severely punished.

In order to ensure that officials "are unable to be corrupt, dare not to be corrupt, do not want to be corrupt", the country must intensify its crackdown upon bribery and make bribe-givers realize that any illicit gains they make by offering bribes will be lost again.