Officials with spouses overseas won't be promoted

The regulation of "naked officials" — civil servants whose family members have migrated overseas — has been tightened in the wake of the Party's efforts to fight graft.

Government officials whose spouses have moved overseas will not be promoted, according to a regulation released by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the Party's top personnel agency.

As for officials who don't have spouses; If all of their children have emigrated, those officials will not be promoted either, the department said on Wednesday.

Promotion of six types of officials, including those who lobby for higher positions, will be banned, according to the regulation.

Officials who have been dismissed from their posts for dereliction of duty cannot be nominated for any new posts within one year, and they are ineligible for any post higher than their previous rank for two years, according to the regulation.

The regulation called on government officials to lead a frugal life to get close to the public and clean up undesirable work styles such as formalism, bureaucratism and hedonism.

Government officials' ethical performance will be the most important factor in deciding whether they get promoted, according to the regulation.

Compared to previous rules on the promotion of government officials, the regulation has made more concrete stipulations and set higher standards for the behavior of officials, said Cheng Wenhao, a professor of public administration at Tsinghua University.

The restrictions on the promotion of "naked officials" are expected to prevent corrupt officials from fleeing overseas with public funds, he said.

Ren Jianming, a professor of clean governance research at Beihang University, said that before fleeing overseas, most corrupt officials have already sent family members out of the country.

Government officials should set an example for the public to be loyal to the State, and it's an international practice to require the loyalty of civil servants, he said.

China has never released the number of corrupt officials who have fled overseas, but the occurrence always triggers a public outcry, he said.

Yang Xianghong, former Party chief of Lucheng district in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, refused to return while in Europe with a government delegation in September 2008. His daughter had immigrated to France.

Prosecutors found that Yang and his wife had accepted bribes worth hundreds of thousands of yuan in 2007, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Supervision in November 2012 showed that 76 corrupt officials had been caught after they fled overseas since 2007.