Given its push to win business around the world, China could have more impact on the G20 anti-corruption agenda if it took its commitment to investigate and prosecute Chinese companies that bribe foreign officials more seriously, said an anti-corruption pressure group after the G20 was hosted by the Chinese city of Hangzhou.
China, which is in the middle of an anti-corruption campaign that has seen hundreds of thousands of arrests and court cases in the country, wants to spread the net wider. Not only should money be returned by the people who stole it, but so should the people themselves, said Transparency International.
China is now proposing world leaders adopt new High Level Principles on Cooperation on Persons Sought for Corruption and Asset Recovery, arguing that international cooperation is required to ensure the return of corrupt individuals to face justice. TI pointed to how China scores 37th on the TI 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, indicating the campaigners say a serious problem with corruption, a score that has barely changed since the start of its anti-corruption campaign primarily because of its methods. These include forced confessions and a lack of an independent judiciary, which means that it is not possible to know if those arrested are political targets.
Trillions of dollars of illicit wealth are pushed through the financial system annually and they end up funding the luxury lifestyle of the corrupt, many of whom have fled their home countries. China’s well-known Operation Foxhunt has sought to locate and return corrupt officials now residing in a number of countries overseas, several of which are G20 members.
Transparency International believes corruption is a cross-border problem requiring cross-border collaboration between governments and law enforcement globally, and welcomes the fact that anti-corruption remains on the G20 agenda.
Cobus de Swardt, managing director, Transparency International, said: “The G20 must realise that most of the world’s corrupt money is sitting in member countries. The buck stops with them to end the system that allows them to benefit from corrupt wealth. We need real progress on forcing out the enablers of corruption: the secret companies that hide the wealth and the people who set them up. And the welcome mat should not be out for ‘investors’ – without doing the right checks to make sure their money is clean.”
