China To Set Up New Anti-Corruption Committee To Fight 'Unprecedentedly Serious' Cases

China will create a new anti-corruption agency to help solve "unprecedentedly serious" cases, Xinhua reported Monday. The brand new effort, devised by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, or SPP, has reportedly been approved by the government.

The new agency will function under the country’s top prosecutor, and will be more organized and focused in helping SPP handle major cases. The move comes as a part of President Xi Jinping’s agenda of rooting out corruption in government as well as in the private sector. Since the beginning of the anti-corruption campaign in 2012, more than 50 officials in senior provincial and ministerial posts have been investigated for corruption and other serious disciplinary violations, Xinhua reported.

According to Deputy Procurator-General Qiu Xueqiang, the work of the government's prosecutors has so far been weakened by a frail organizational structure and staffing limitations.

"We will regard this as an opportunity to strive to make the anti-corruption office into a smart, highly effective, specialised agency with the distinguishing features of Chinese investigation that possesses formidable strength, deterrence and credibility," Qiu said, according to Reuters, adding that the reforms will allow the SPP "to concentrate its energy to directly investigate big and important cases ... and effectively break through institutional barriers in handling cases."

China has been investigating senior officials like Zhou Yongkang, former domestic security chief; Xu Caihou, former vice president of China’s Military Commission; Yu Gang, the former deputy head of the general office of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs; and Li Dongsheng, former vice minister of Public Security, for corruption and other violations.

Corruption investigations in the country are first conducted by the ruling Communist Party of China’s anti-graft regulator, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, following which, they are referred to the country’s legal authorities, according to Reuters.

“Although the authority's determination and force is unprecedented, corruption problems at present are unprecedentedly serious,” Qiu said, according to Xinhua, adding: “The new agency will be better organized and better able to help the SPP handle major cases and break institutional obstacles.”