China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily, website of CCDI and the National Commission of Supervision:

Over the past years, the regulations and rules on accountability and supervision of officers have been promulgated continuously, including wiping out "naked officials" (who have moved their spouses, children, and assets abroad), strengthening supervision and inspection in official selection and appointment, requiring officials to submit report about relevant personal matters, and restricting officials' spouses, children and their spouses to engage in doing business and running enterprises. Can you elaborate please?

Xu Qifang:

Let me answer your question. General Secretary Xi Jinping reiterated many times that "the key to full and rigorous governance over the Party lies in rigorous governance of its officials" and "the focus of full and rigorous governance over the Party is to strictly manage its officials." Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Organization Department has firmly followed the principle of full and rigorous governance over the Party, applied rigorous standards to officials, and taken rigorous measures to manage officials. In doing so, we have launched a slew of measures on strictly managing and supervising officials. 

First, we have improved the report system with Chinese characteristics on officials' personal matters, including the system in the overall planning of exerting full and rigorous self-governance. With the system serving as an effective tool, we conducted spot checks and verification and raised the rates of spot checks from 3-5% annually to 10% annually. We thoroughly checked all candidates for official selections and carried out full checks on all officials registered at and supervised by the CPC Central Committee before the opening of the 20th CPC National Congress. 

Second, we have regulated business and enterprise-running activities by officials' spouses, children, and their spouses. We started the supervision work in this regard across China in 2015, regulating businesses and enterprises and running activities by more than 4,700 officials' spouses, children, and their spouses. Following the centralized regulation, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee issued a regulation on the business activities of relatives of officials, establishing and improving a regular and long-term mechanism. The work has proven important in encouraging officials to improve their political conduct, exercise of power, self-governance, and regulate members of their families. It has won wide support from officials and our people. 

Third, in selecting and appointing officials, we have intensified supervision, checks, and rectified problems identified in the inspection process. Since the 19th CPC National Congress, with concerted efforts by the central inspection teams, we have launched full-coverage and special campaigns to inspect selections and the appointment of officials in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and more than 200 central departments. Each year, we assessed work in selecting and appointing officials in provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, as well as central departments and organizations. In 2021, the good ratings for selecting and appointing officials at local governments and departments increased by 23 percentage points compared with that in 2013, showing a good sign of improvement.

Fourth, we have taken a slew of specific measures, making great efforts to solve deeply-rooted issues in selecting, appointing, managing, and supervising officials. Focusing on launching specific initiatives, we have successfully addressed a number of ingrained problems. For example, we launched an initiative to rectify the problems concerning official appointment and institution setup. It refers to the excess of officials in specific positions, the irregular promotion of officials, irregular organizations, the unauthorized promotion of officials or improvement of their treatment, and granting officials unauthorized titles. We initiated a specific campaign to combat "naked officials", having established institutions and rolled out regulations on the management of positions taken by them, specifying restrictions on their promotion and taking certain positions. We took targeted measures against officials' private outbound trips and managed their passports and papers, strictly dealing with irregular behaviors. We conducted a special campaign against the "revolving door" phenomena involving the personnel in financial departments registered at and supervised by the CPC Central Committee as well as their resignations to escape punishment, and irregular job arrangements for relatives in their own work sectors. 

Next, focusing on studying and implementing the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress, we will unswervingly implement all decisions on exercising full and rigorous Party self-governance and make further progress in rigorous governance and supervision of officials. Thank you.