China Focus: Anti-graft "Sky Net" frightens fugitive officials

The new anti-graft "Sky Net" campaign helped return two suspects back to China on Saturday.

Pang Shunxi, a former tax official and An Huimin, a former trade company general manager, are both suspected of bribery.

They fled to Laos after prosecutors started investigating them in December last year. They turned themselves in after the Chinese and Lao police initiated an intense manhunt.

Following last year's "Fox Hunt 2014," "Sky Net" aims to carry out better international cooperation to capture corrupt officials who fled overseas.

"Sky Net" is an upgrade to administrative procedures, including setting up a 24-hour tip-off website and increasing international cooperation.

The latest campaign has once again made it clear that corrupt officials have no place to hide and will be hunted and punished even if they fled to the ends of the earth.

In January this year, President Xi Jinping reiterated the country's resolution to hunt fugitive officials with more corruption eradication efforts.

"Xxdaguo," a public account on messaging app WeChat Sunday posted an article, calling on fugitive officials to return.

"There is no heaven overseas, but only a sky net to hunt those at large," said the article.

China has signed extradition treaties with 39 countries and criminal judicial assistance treaties with 52 countries.

Moreover, it has signed 124 agreements or memoranda with 91 countries, regions or international organizations, according to the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

In a move to boost international cooperation to fight corruption, the Beijing Declaration on Fighting Corruption was adopted at the APEC meeting in November last year, unveiling more transnational collaboration in weaving the net to catch the fugitive suspects.

The declaration suggested that the APEC members eliminate corruption through extradition and judicial procedure, with more flexibility in recovering the proceeds of corruption.

Wang Guoqiang, an escaped corruption suspect who turned himself in last year, said in a written article that he and his wife were afraid of being caught by using their passports.

Wang, a former chief of the Communist Party of China of Fengcheng City in northeast China's Liaoning Province, said during his two years and eight months in the United States, he and his wife did not dare use their passports, see doctors, contact their relatives in China or visit their friends in the U.S.

In the "Fox Hunt 2014", 680 fugitives suspected of economic crimes were repatriated to China from July to Dec. 31 last year. More are expected to be trapped by "Sky Net" this year. Endi