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The nationwide anti-corruption campaign of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has turned the spotlight onto the 94-year-old party, along with the corrupt officials exposed in recent years.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki takes questions from Chinese media on Wednesday in Beijing. [Photo/ China.org.cn by Chen Boyuan]

 

The CPC's self-purification efforts have won recognition from world leaders and political figures, who tend to applaud the CPC, China's ruling party, for its courage and determination in admitting corruption is a serious problem before confronting it head-on.

A handful of former world leaders, including former South African President Thabo Mbeki, former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza and former Botswanan President Festus Mogae, were the latest to recognize the CPC's resolve and achievements, when they met the Chinese press on the sidelines of an annual CPC world dialogue in Beijing this week.

Mbeki hailed Chinese new leadership's courage in admitting that corruption is a serious issue and setting out to tackle it in a determined way. "It is an important lesson for us, too, because corruption is everywhere, including my own country," he said on Wednesday, second day of the "To Discipline the Party: Responsibility of the Party – The Party and the World Dialogue 2015."

" I think the CPC sets a good example in terms of a comprehensive anti-corruption program, which I haven't seen anywhere else in the world," said Mbeki, who succeeded Nelson Mandela as president in 1999.

He said fighting corruption was a most important task for a ruling party, which in China's case is the CPC, because "the ruling party is the governing body; it's intimately linked to the government of the State."

Mbeki praised the CPC for its efforts to achieve self-perfection, since for most countries governed by the multiparty system, usually the anti-corruption campaign was launched by the opposition, resulting in the rotation of the party in office.

China's anti-corruption drive also features tightening up intra-Party discipline, such as that Party members are not allowed to hold extravagant weddings and funerals, among other activities not actually prohibited by law. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the CPC's discipline watchdog, is playing a vital role in making sure that "there must be consequences" for a Party member who does something wrong, according to Mbeki, explaining why "discipline is very central" to China's anti-corruption campaign and, indeed, to any political party.

Former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza agreed that the incentive for strict discipline lies in the "incentives for corruption" in a society. Guebuza said African countries are often instantly associated with rampant corruption, a phenomenon he explained as that, in a country with poor economy, people achieving power tend to take advantage of the opportunity to gain more access to public resources.

Guebuza said that corruption as a global issue needs a global solution. In international cooperation, bilateral and multilateral extradition treaties should be strengthened so that there is no safe haven anywhere for corrupt officials.

Former Botswanan President Festus Mogae called corruption a "general evil" since "it is human nature to take advantage of other people and it's not unique to any country." He is most impressed that the CPC is determined that everyone should be engaged in fighting this evil, whereas in other countries, the case is often that "the leader makes an announcement of fighting corruption and that's the end of it."

Deeming it "exceptional," Mogae also hailed the CPC for having the courage to bring any corrupt official – senior or petty ones alike, or "tigers and flies" in Chinese – to justice.

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