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October 30, 2014

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APEC set to agree anti-graft deal

Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily | October 30, 2014, Thursday | Print Edition

AN international agreement to fight corruption is expected to be one of the key deals signed at next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing, a top Chinese official said yesterday.

“Anti-corruption is one of the topics up for discussion, and one that all parties care about,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a press conference in the capital.

“The world has already seen China’s determination and measures taken to fight corruption,” he said.

President Xi Jinping launched a campaign to fight deep-seated graft on his election as general secretary of the Communist Party of China two years ago.

While the drive has achieved some notable successes, efforts have been hampered by a lack of international cooperation in repatriating corrupt officials and their ill-gotten gains.

“We hope to get cooperation and support from the international community ... so your country does not become a haven for fugitives,” Wang said.

The United States, Canada and Australia are the three most popular destinations for China’s economic criminals.

Australia has already pledged its support for operation Fox Hunt, which was launched by Beijing in July to track down corrupt officials living overseas.

In the six years through 2013, nearly 6,700 corrupt Chinese officials were repatriated, Cao Jianming, the country’s top prosecutor, said last October.

Among them were about 730 officials suspected of embezzlement and bribery extradited from 54 countries and regions, the Ministry of Public Security said in July.

China has signed extradition pacts with 38 countries — including five Western nations — the first of which was inked with Thailand in 1993.

In 2004, the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation said nearly 4,000 officials had fled overseas with almost US$50 billion since the introduction of 1978’s reform and opening-up policy.

In 2008, the People’s Bank of China cited a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences research report saying that between 16,000 and 18,000 officials from Party organs, government departments, state institutions and state-owned companies had fled overseas or disappeared since the mid-1990s along with 800 billion yuan (US$131 billion).

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