Five-year work plan to fight graft unveiled

China aims to establish a system to punish corrupt officials by the end of 2017, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee said.

Supervision of how officials exercise power will be enhanced, and a punishment system, under which officials dare not take bribes, will be formed, according to a five-year work plan that the Political Bureau approved on Tuesday.

The work plan — made by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC, the country's top anti-graft agency — is the commission's second five-year plan targeting corruption.

Given that corruption remains rampant, punishment for graft will be increased, the work plan said.

Both "tigers" (senior corrupt officials) and "flies" (low-level corrupt officials) will be targeted to prevent the spread of corruption, the work plan said.

In a speech at an anti-graft conference in January, President Xi Jinping vowed strict supervision, saying that authorities must tackle graft by targeting both "flies and tigers".

The Party's disciplinary inspection system will be reformed, and supervision through the Party's anti-graft agencies, judicial authorities and news media will be enhanced, according to the plan.

Anti-corruption officials should play a leading role in setting an example for other officials in clean governance.

The work plan also promises to eliminate undesirable work habits of Party and government officials, including formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance.

Xi had said that the Party is going to initiate a yearlong campaign to "thoroughly clean up" undesirable work habits.

Zhu Lijia, a professor on government administration at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said inspection teams will become routine in the anti-corruption campaign.

Through the inspection teams, central authorities will pinpoint problems in local governments more effectively, he said.