BEIJING
A senior Chinese official has sworn that the government’s war on graft is not over, vowing to continue its measures to root out corruption.
The country's state news agency reported Wednesday that a total of 71,748 corrupt Chinese officials - high level violators known locally as "tigers" and low level as "flies" - have been punished in 2014 for violations of eight-point anti-graft rules.
Xinhua quoted Huang Shuxian, deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, as saying that cases involving 68 high-level officials - "tigers" - are under investigation or have been closed, and 1,575 of the Party's own graft-busters had also been rooted out for corruption during the campaign.
Among those investigated were a former Party chief in southwestern Sichuan Province who was handed a 16-year jail sentence for corruption for taking bribes worth 5.5 million Yuan ($898,000) from several companies from 2009 to 2013 and a senior Chinese diplomat "suspected of violating discipline" - a typical euphemism for corruption.
The deputy secretary singled out some party officials in the northern coal-producing Shanxi Province for widespread corruption, and added that investigations into election fraud will also continue in Hengyang in central Hunan.
Hengyang had been subject to one of the largest cases of corruption in terms of people and money.
Huang added that China had also sought international help in hunting corrupt party members who had fled the country.
He said that several countries had helped in the fight against corruption - notably the United States, Canada and Australia - who had assisted China in bringing home more than 500 fugitive corrupt officials and recovering more than 3 billion Yuan ($483 million) in 2014 alone.
Violations of the rules included excessive spending on receptions and vehicles; extravagant weddings and funerals; and sending or accepting gifts, disobeying workplace rules; overseas travel and personal entertainment financed by public funds; negligence and lazy work practices. President Xi Jinping’s launched his "Fox Hunt" anti-corruption campaign in 2013.
The drive has seen dozens of senior officials, including those of ministerial rank, penalized.
