10 March 2004
Alexa Olesen

BEIJING (AP) - China's government pledged Wednesday to intensify the fight against what it considers social evils - street crime and terrorism, Falun Gong and the corrupt officials that are undermining leaders' claims of putting people first.

The country's top judge and top prosecutor, in reports before the National People's Congress, acknowledged the many problems that face their changing society, but insisted the government has matters well in hand.

Chief prosecutor Jia Chunwang told legislators that in the past year China has "resolutely attacked ethnic separatists, religious extremists, violent terrorists, and Falun Gong and other types of criminal organized movements." The Falun Gong spiritual movement was banned by the government in 1999 as an "evil cult."

Supreme Court Chief Justice Xiao Yang said bribe-taking and other corruption persists within China's courts, seriously hurting the legal system's reputation.

"We will take further effective measures to increase our supervision, strengthen our forces and spare no efforts to solve the problem," Xiao said.

Chinese leaders fear growing anger over official corruption might trigger unrest and threaten their grip on power. Targeting crime - be it violence, separatism or government corruption - is a foundation of the government's efforts to persuade the public that progress is at hand. Corruption is a particular embarrassment.

"We are paying more and more attention to controlling it," said Yu Baofa, a congressional delegate from the eastern province of Shandong.

"The government is even willing to deal with high-level leaders," Yu said. "It will put the person in jail."

Xiao said six ministerial-level officials had been sentenced in 2004 for "job-related crimes," including a judge, a former governor from southwestern China and a top banking official. A total of 22,986 cases of "job-related abuse" by government officials were heard by China's courts last year, Xiao said.

Jia said prosecutors investigated 18,515 major corruption crimes involving 2,728 officials last year.

In some cases, prosecutors failed to deal with local corruption cases quickly or well enough, Jia said, promising to do more in the coming year. He vowed to "earnestly seek a solution."

An easing of social restrictions that have helped boost economic growth have also contributed to a sharp rise in crime, violence and corruption in recent years. In response, China launched a "Strike Hard" campaign against crime in the mid-1990s and renews it periodically.

"We will persist under the guiding principle of 'Strike Hard' and punish severely according to the law all manner of crimes in order to preserve national security, social stability and the security of life and property for the masses," Xiao said.

Courts convicted 308,183 people of such violent offenses as murder, arson, kidnapping or what the official Xinhua News Agency called "mafia-like organized crime."

China's efforts against terrorism have typically meant fighting Uighur separatists in the heavily Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang and keeping a tight rein on practitioners of Falun Gong.

China stepped up its suppression of Xinjiang's separatist movement following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. The government asserts some Uighurs maintain close ties to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Two years ago, the United States agreed to place a Xinjiang independence group on its list of terrorist organizations. But many in Xinjiang, which borders both Pakistan and Afghanistan, say their struggle for independence has no link to international terrorism.

Similarly, while Beijing sees Falun Gong as a threat to security and has arrested thousands of its practitioners, activists abroad insist the group is nonpolitical and nonviolent and has been victimized unfairly.