International legal assistance in anti-corruption criminal cases in the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Since 2014, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government have begun to pay significant attention to the field of international prosecution of corrupt officials and the international search for stolen money and property. Sources of law in the area of international legal assistance in anti-corruption cases in China include: international multilateral treaties, bilateral agreements, domestic law, memoranda of the Communist Party of China. China has achieved much success since 2014, and such results can be divided into 3 types: success in the international prosecution of corrupt officials, success in the international search for stolen money and property, and, diplomatic achievements. Unfortunately, although the legal regulation of international assistance in anti-corruption criminal cases is constantly being improved and the results are impressive, a number of issues remain unresolved, including: giving more attention on the international prosecution of criminals than the international search for stolen money and property; the frequency of the use of treaties in international criminal judicial assistance and the number of signed international treaties leave much to be desired; focusing on individual cases instead of improving the entire system for catching corrupt officials as a whole; the lack of a mechanism for applying international multilateral or bilateral treaties; the existence of a conflict between different sources of legal regulation in the fight against corruption.