China's determination to fight corruption was further highlighted with 444 government officials in north China's Shanxi Province disciplined in a just completed three-month campaign.

The provincial disciplinary watchdog's strike is being regarded a powerful epilog to the past year's fight against corruption, which featured the fall of numerous high-ranking officials.

The most infamous case was that of the former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu, who was allegedly involved in a social security fund scandal.

Other sacked senior officials include former vice mayor of Beijing Liu Zhihua, former top procurator of Tianjin Li Baojin, former vice governor of Anhui He Minxu and former deputy head of Jiangsu provincial legislature Wang Wulong.

Apart from the crackdown on power abuse, illegal private gains and dereliction of duty, the ruling party has pointed its anti-graft drive at commercial bribery.

Statistics showed that during the first 10 months of last year, China dealt with 8,010 commercial bribery cases, involving 880 million yuan (US$110 million). Procuratorates of various levels approved the arrest of 5,117 suspects and has prosecuted 4,212 of them.

By September last year, China's courts had heard 233 bribery cases related to company employees and 5,429 such cases involving government workers, up 10.43 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, compared to the first nine months of the previous year.

Commercial bribery usually refers to bribes offered by companies to government officials in exchange for special favors.

Gan Yisheng, an official with the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline, said the anti-graft work focused on three areas -- dignifying Party and government regulations, digging out corrupt officials and deterring commercial bribery.

Wu Guanzheng, head of the commission, once urged Party members to form correct views about power, benefits and morality and to resist temptation and bribery.

The commission is striving to set up a comprehensive legal framework for fighting corruption and building a clean government by 2010. The specific regulations, systems and mechanisms to enrich the framework will be in place by 2020.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2007)