Supreme Court: Crack down hard on "flies, corrupt ants, and corrupt officials" — those who deserve heavier sentences will not be lenient

According to the Supreme People’s Court, as the fight against corruption deepens, new developments and characteristics have emerged in current corruption crimes. The methods are complex and diverse, showing trends such as the concealment of corrupt entities, indirect behavior patterns, and market-oriented transfer of benefits, posing new challenges for the trial of official crimes. Ma Yan, head of the Second Criminal Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court, stated that the court is deeply aware of the new trends and features of corruption’s renewal, upgrading, and covert transformation. The court continues to strengthen analysis and judgment of new hidden forms of corruption such as expected gains, agreed nominee holding, and political-business “revolving doors,” grasping the essential characteristics of money-for-power transactions. The goal is to enhance the anti-corruption efforts’ penetrating power, making new forms of corruption less new, hidden corruption harder to conceal, and ensuring that corruption crimes have nowhere to hide and that corrupt individuals have no refuge. The Supreme People’s Court announced that it will strictly punish corruption crimes in key areas such as finance, state-owned enterprises, energy, education, academic associations, development zones, and bidding processes, vigorously cracking down on petty corruption. It will adhere to the standard of “amount plus circumstances,” fully considering the details of the crime, harm consequences, and malicious intent, maintaining a high-pressure stance against corruption. Ma Yan emphasized that crimes such as political-business collusion, damaging the political ecology, harming the interests of the masses, multiple large-scale bribe-taking, and transferring illicit funds abroad will be decisively and severely punished according to law, with no leniency for serious offenses. (CCTV News)