Corruption fight is to grow into a system

A military court sentenced former senior military official Gu Junshan to death with a two-year reprieve, Xinhua reported on Monday. Quite a few military "tigers" (high-ranking corrupt officials) such as former vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong have fallen in the anti-corruption campaign. Ironically, this has prompted some officials to say the campaign should now be loosened. Needless to say, their argument is baseless.

When the ongoing crackdown on corruption was launched, many, if not most, of the officials assumed - thanks to the outcomes of some previous drives - that it would not last more than one year and the guilty would get lighter punishments to save higher authorities' face.

The fact is, some earlier anti-corruption drives faded because they had some inherent defects. For example, retired officials and some serving in key State-owned enterprises, the People's Liberation Army and other "sensitive" organizations were hardly the targets in the realm of investigations. This made some officials somewhat immune to crackdowns against corruption.