Does China hold any lessons for India on fighting corruption?

Modi with Xi Reuters (File) Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in 2016 | Reuters

In the 1995 edition of Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, regarded as the authoritative global ranking of efforts to fight graft, India’s place was 35th out of 41 nations.

With a score of 2.78 and showing high rates of corruption (numbers closer to 0 indicate high corruption), India wasn’t worse off than 'neighbouring' countries such as China, Pakistan and Indonesia. In the 1995 Corruption Perceptions Index, China got a score of 2.16, indicating rampant corruption. China was, in fact, five places below India. From then onwards, however, China has performed better than India in the Corruption Perceptions Index.

In the 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, India was ranked 81, while China ranked 77 out of 180 countries.

As the world observed International Anti-Corruption Day on December 9, it would be beneficial to look at the record of China, a country that has consistently outranked India in the Corruption Perceptions Index.

The massive growth of the Chinese economy in the past 40 years had unleashed major socio-economic changes in the one-party state, such as opening of numerous manufacturing and services facilities and other businesses. This transformation has also given corrupt officials new avenues to 'cash in' as citizens and companies sought to take advantage of the opportunities, and fruits, of globalisation.

As a result, foreign companies have often complained of harassment and have seemingly preferred operating in the country's 14 special economic zones, where corruption is lesser.

Concerned about the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, China has made it a priority to strengthen anti-corruption laws. Several senior officials, including former security chief Zhou Yongkang, have been arrested on corruption charges. After President Xi Jinping assumed office, the government has carried out aggressive anti-corruption campaigns.

“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has disciplined well over 1 million officials since Xi took power in 2012,” political science professor David Skidmore wrote in The Conversation in October 2017. Gerry Shih wrote in The Washington Post in October that since 2012, “Authorities have investigated more than 2.7 million officials and punished more than 1.5 million people... Prosecutors have tried about 58,000 officials and sentenced two to death.”

Two main laws in China that have seen amendments to curb corruption are the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and Criminal Law.

The Anti-Unfair Competition Law focuses on commercial bribery. It includes bribing an employee or agent for business gains and does not include government officials. Certain serious cases might have a criminal investigation. It is punishable to receive and give bribes to sell or purchase goods. In the end, the ‘illicit income’ is confiscated in addition to the imposition of a heavy fine.

Under the Criminal Law, there’s a distinction between official bribery and non-official bribery. The former includes bribery by state officials and the latter includes workers of private companies. Punishments range from petty fines to confiscation of properties, imprisonment and sometimes even the death penalty. An amendment made to the Criminal Law in 2015 makes it illegal to bribe a civil servant’s relatives or close friends.

In 2017, President Jinping introduced a new committee not only to oversee all party members but also public servants. This is the National Supervision Commission. The committee has more powers than the Supreme Court, which is why it has been called "a systemic threat to human rights in China" by Amnesty International.

However, despite all the massive measures adopted by China, Transparency International's 2017 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) recorded that 73 per cent of the respondents believe that corruption has increased.

India's ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index has seen little change in recent years, highlighting the lack of momentum on corrective measures. The movement for instituting a Lokpal has all but fizzled out after the heady days of the Anna Hazare agitation of 2011 and political parties have been unanimous in expressing their inability to bar 'tainted' candidates. Perhaps, studying the institutional changes made by Xi Jinping could prove beneficial to India in curbing corruption.