Anti-corruption momentum

Li Chuncheng, deputy secretary of the Sichuan provincial Party committee, was investigated for alleged violations of discipline less than a month after he was elected an alternate member of the 18th Party Central Committee.

The mayor of Lanzhou, capital of Northwest China's Gansu province, is also being investigated after it was revealed he possessed a variety of expensive luxury watches.

The message is that the new Party leadership means it when it says that it will intensify the fight against graft.

After the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last month and the seminar convened on Saturday by Wang Qishan, the new secretary of the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection of the CPC, the Party discipline inspection authorities are obviously responding quickly to exposs of any abuse of power.

This is exactly what the general public has long been expecting of it.

It goes without saying that the efforts of netizens need to be encouraged. Yet, the effectiveness of netizens in exposing corruption has highlighted the challenge that lies ahead for the official watchdogs.

Of course, it is the will of the majority of citizens that their enthusiasm and the top authorities' resolve will work together to strengthen the fight against graft, so that not just the online exposure of an official's sex scandal or their consumption of luxury goods become the triggers for investigations into officials' corruption, but also watchdogs such as anti-corruption bureaus and Party discipline inspection commissions at all levels bite with real teeth.

While institutional innovations are needed to root out corruption at its source, existing rules on the protection of those who provide clues that result in the catching of corrupt officials should be carried out in earnest. The honors and material incentives the rules provide for such information should also be delivered.

By and large, the encouraging response to the exposures of corruption provides the top authorities with a good opportunity to go a step further in identifying and checking corruption with institutional mechanisms, say, the way to make officials declare their personal property and disclose such information to the public.

That will add to the good momentum.