China Slips in Corruption Perceptions Report
By Didi Kirsten Tatlow

China’s very public campaign against graft has netted thousands of officials both big and small — “tigers” and “flies,” in Communist Party parlance — but the perception of China as a deeply corrupt country is only rising, according to a leading watchdog group.

In fact, global awareness of the scale of corruption in China is up sharply, according to the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index, published on Wednesday by Transparency International, a nonprofit organization based in Berlin.

A spokesman for Transparency International, Thomas Coombes, said that China’s standing was damaged by the perception among some experts and businesspeople that its anticorruption campaign was partial, opaque and politically motivated, casting doubt on its efficacy.

“The campaign is just the tip of the iceberg, and is not even being done in a transparent manner,” Mr. Coombes said.

The index ranked China 104th among 175 countries, a drop of 20 places from last year, and the single largest drop in terms of ranking.

The worsening of perceptions of corruption in China may also be because the campaign, ordered by President Xi Jinping nearly two years ago, has exposed major structural problems in how corruption is being fought, Mr. Coombes said.

What Transparency International looks for as a sign of genuine improvement in the fight against corruption is “permanent and structural change,” he said.

“I think the problem is what China is not doing: transparency and accountability of public officials,” Mr. Coombes said.

What is missing are “stronger laws on bribery, access to information, whistleblower protection, more open budgets and asset declarations,” he said in an email.

Once again, Nordic countries were clustered at the top of the index, which grades countries on a scale of zero to 100, with a higher number indicating lower corruption. Denmark received the highest score at 92. China scored 36, a four-point drop from the previous year. Turkey fell by five points, the single biggest points drop.

New Zealand came second at 91, followed by Finland, Sweden and Norway.

“The fact that the Nordic countries are consistently on top shows how important free speech, accountable government and independent judiciary are to fighting corruption. These are all missing in China,” Mr. Coombes said.

China’s ranking put it just below Algeria and above Suriname. Three African countries — Angola, Malawi and Rwanda — also recorded four-point drops, the report said.

Corruption in most countries was a serious problem, the index found. More than two-thirds of countries scored below 50, the halfway mark to a corruption-free society.

The index is calculated from 12 independent sources, including surveys conducted by different groups of businesspeople and other experts. Among them is the Executive Opinion Survey by the World Economic Forum and the Rule of Law Index by the World Justice Project, which looks at the legal environment around corruption issues.

In China’s case, “several sources suggested the campaign is politically motivated, so more transparency and judicial independence would also help,” Mr. Coombes said. He added that China also needed to offer far greater protection for whistleblowers.

A major problem with a crackdown without legal or political transparency was that corrupt officials could easily hide overseas, “indeed in almost any financial center worldwide, be it the British Virgin Islands, Delaware or London,” he said.

To combat that, the organization urged all countries, especially the United States and the countries of the European Union and the Group of 20, to create public registers “that would make clear who really controls, or is the beneficial owner, of every company” in an effort to track the international flow of illicit funds.

The organization lauded China for removing in principle its opposition to sharing information about the beneficial owners of companies at the G-20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia, last month, but said, “they stopped short of the public company registers we want.”

In Beijing, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the report’s findings in light of China’s vigorous efforts to combat graft.

“The findings and rankings of the 2014 “Corruption Perceptions Index” are in total variance to the successes that all can see from China’s anti-corruption fight, and seriously undeserved,” said Hua Chunying at a regular news briefing. “The clear successes of China’s anti-corruption work will be judged by the masses, and not by an index” drawn up by Transparency International.

Ms. Hua also reiterated the Chinese government’s recent call for other countries to do more to track down and return officials who are suspected of having fled abroad with stolen assets, noting “right now there’s a clear phenomenon of corrupt officials going overseas.”

“Only if each country entirely cooperates, especially in judicial assistance and extradition, will corrupt officials find no haven,” she said.

全球清廉度 台灣35名、大陸倒退20名最慘

「國際透明組織」三日公布今年度的「清廉印象指數」，在一百七十五個國家和地區中，台灣的清廉度比去年進步一名到卅五名。肅貪行動接連不斷的大陸反而倒退二十名到第一百名，跌幅最大。

總部設在德國柏林的「國際透明組織」從1995年開始發布清廉印象指數，評比依據是十三個獨立調查機構的資料。指數滿分為一百分，代表最清廉，零分代表貪瀆最嚴重。

台灣得六十一分，大陸得三十六分，比埃及、賴比瑞亞還糟糕。丹麥以九十二分居冠，北韓和索馬利亞以八分共同墊底。

中共總書記習近平上台後，大張旗鼓進行肅貪，揚言不分官位大小，老虎蒼蠅都要打，也的確讓多位高官落馬。為何排名不進反退？

紐約時報和華盛頓郵報分別訪問「國際透明組織」的代表，得到的答案是：北京當局發動的肅貪係由上而下，且有選擇性和政治性，周永康即為一例。肅貪行動聚焦在懲罰個人，只有短期的嚇阻效果，而非藉由修法進行制度面的改革。

「國際透明組織」發言人庫姆斯表示，中國的肅貪「只是冰山一角，過程也不透明」。中國的肅貪暴露出結構性的問題，「真正的肅貪必須進行常態性與結構性的變革」。

庫姆斯在回答紐時的電郵中指出：「我想（排名下滑）問題出在中國沒有在做的事情上面：透明度與官員的當責制度。缺的是更嚴格的肅貪法令、資訊的公開、對告密者的保護、更公開的預算編列和財產申報。」

中國外交部發言人華春瑩三日在例行記者會上表示，評分和排名與中國反腐敗取得舉世矚目成就的現實情況完全相背、嚴重不符：「中國反腐敗工作取得的明顯成效自有人民群眾的公正評價，不以清廉印象指數為標準。國際透明作為一個在國際上有一定影響力的組織，應認真審視清廉印象指數的客觀性、公正性。」

原文參照：
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/china-slips-in-corruption-perceptions-report/

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20141204/c04corruption/zh-hant/

2014-12-04．聯合報．A7．財經．編譯張佑生