Amid growing scandals, the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party rediscovers its 1997 'code of conduct' whose regulations require leaders to inform the party of their marriages, funerals, property transactions and foreign trips. According to one scholar, the regulations are useless because they rely on officials' integrity, something that no longer exists.

Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – The Chinese government has dusted off and revised nine-year-old regulations that require leading officials to provide details of their personal lives, such as their investments, changes in their marital status and whether their children marry foreigners.

After a Politburo meeting chaired by President Hu Jintao, a statement was released saying the "regulations had been revised to make it easier to require top government and Communist Party officials to declare their personal affairs to party committees".

Details of the revision have not been released but the original 1997 regulations require officials to report to the party within a month if their immediate family members build, buy, sell or rent properties, marry foreigners, emigrate or travel abroad for private reasons. They also require officials to inform local supervisory committees if they or their relatives are involved in the organisation of weddings and funerals, which provide occasions for officials to get kickbacks in the guise of gifts or condolences.

The new policy comes amid growing anger over rampant corruption among close relatives and aides of top government and party officials, and as jockeying for power intensifies in the run-up to next year's 17th party congress where a big leadership reshuffle is planned.

The Chinese Communist Party is currently awash with scandals. The central government has sent more than 100 anti-graft investigators to Shanghai to probe a widening scandal involving the city's pension funds in which a total of 3.2 billion yuan is thought to have been misappropriated. This has sparked speculation over whether some top officials and their close relatives were implicated.

Last week, the municipal government confirmed that Qin Yu, a former secretary to Shanghai party boss, and politburo member Chen Liangyu, were being investigated for "seriously violating regulations" in relation to the pension fund scandal.

More recent crackdowns on corruption among top officials, including Beijing vice-mayor Liu Zhihua and officials from Tianjin, have influenced the politburo's decision.

Beijing scholar Hu Xingdou said the revision highlighted the dilemma facing the leadership. Enforcing regulations was difficult because it relied on the goodwill of officials.

"It is based", he said, "on a hypothesis that the more senior an official, the better integrity he has and that he has the power to monitor his subordinates. However, a supervisor and his subordinates usually belong to the same vested interest group."

• china
• beijing
• shanghai
• tiajin
• corruption
• party
• 1997
• code
• of
• conduct
• regulations
• crackdown