Recently, South Korea set to operate the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO), despite strong protests by the main opposition party and conservative groups. On January 14, 2020, the Korean National Assembly passed a controversial bill setting up an independent investigation agency dedicated to investigating corruption and abuse of power among high-ranking public officials, and on July 15, 2020, the Act on the Establishment and Operation of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (the “CIO Act”) was set to take effect. In an alleged effort to reform the country’s judicial system and distrust of public prosecutors, President Moon Jae-In’s top campaign promise in the 2017 presidential election was the establishment of the CIO. The CIO is an independent agency responsible for prosecuting crimes and investigating allegations involving 6,500 “high-ranking officials” ” – incumbent and former – or their direct family members. In order to fully understand the idea and its background of establishing the CIO under the Moon’s pro-China administration, politics and anti-corruption move by Chinese President Xi Jingping need to be examined in comparison.
In internal politics, Chinese President Xi is a clear-cut follower of Mao Zedong. He holds firms grasp on China’s only political party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s parliament amended its constitution to broaden Xi’s power by scrapping his term limits. Externally, he is also following Mao’s diplomacy by pursuing the establishment of the G2 ‘New Type of Great Power Relations’ with the U.S., which is indeed a breaking-away policy from Deng Xiaoping’s strategy Tāoguāngyǎnghuì (韜光養晦 – waiting patiently without revealing his talent or fame). It was part of Xi’s diplomacy that spurred the fortification of the South China Sea and enacted the Hong Kong National Security Law. He has been exerting influence overseas not only with the carrot and the stick but also through clever manipulation of public opinion by using “sharp power”, “wolf warrior diplomacy”, and “Mao Zedong’s long war of endurance strategy” as a means of foreign policy: Xi’s diplomacy is exerting power to force counterpart states or groups to follow by mobilizing massive slush funds or even illegal methods such as coercion, bribery, economic influence, inducement, and purchasing power, etc. Economically, through the Free Trade Zone, manufacturing industry promotion policy, and the ‘One Belt and One Road’ project, it seeks to fulfill the Two Centenary Goals (to make an all-around moderately prosperous society in 2021, the CCP’s centenary, and to build a modern socialist country by 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China).
China’s National Supervisory Commission (NSC) is a super-powerful inspection agency newly established through the constitutional amendment (March 2018) to support Xi Jinping’s draconian move, and is carrying out a function to solidify the long-term governance of Xi Jinping’s monolithic leadership system through anti-corruption inspection activities. Apart from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which is the party’s internal inspection agency, it was introduced as the highest inspection agency under the constitution. In terms of national hierarchy, the ranking of NSC is followed only by the National People’s Congress, the President, the State Council, and the Central Military Commission, ahead of the courts and the prosecution office in China. In the scope of the work, unlike the CCDI, which only targets Communist party members, the NSC can also monitor non-CCP member public officials, state-owned enterprise executives, and private persons who perform official duties by delegation of authorities. It also has the authority to conduct investigation, interrogation, detention, freezing and confiscation of property.
The CIO established by the Moon Jae-in administration, can be seen as like the NSC of China because of its wide range of targets and scope of the investigation. Although China structured the basis for the establishment of the NSC through the constitutional amendment and secured the scope of its work, the CIO is given the exclusivity of its work without constitutional basis even though the Korean Constitution only referred to the Prosecutor General as the head of the investigative agency. Also, the NSC does not have a direct prosecution right (right to institute a public action), but the CIO has a prosecutorial authority. While the CIO Act stipulates that families of high-ranking officials are subject to investigation, China’s inspection law does not specify families of public officials.
In the end, the CIO in Korea is a more powerful and extensive inspection agency than China’s NSC, which supports Xi Jinping’s super-totalitarianism and unlike China, the CIO is trying to establish and operate without constitutional grounds. Traditionally, the prosecutors’ office and the police in Korea have been quite active in investigating public corruption or bribery, since corruption has always been a major issue in the Korean society. Recently under the Moon’s administration, a series of political scandals are about to be revealed including 2018 election-meddling scandal for a local city major candidate who is a close friend of the president, abuse of power by the Blue House staff, and political influence for the suspension of operation of Korean nuclear reactors. Many experts and people in Korea have argued that the CIO will play a role as a shield of these scandals rather than as a genuine reform organization against corruptions. The opposition party and citizen groups have filed suits before the Constitutional Court, alleging that the CIO Act is an unconstitutional bypass of the current criminal justice system for the political gains of the ruling party.
The CIO has started to pick up a minor case regarding abuse of power by the Educational Superintendent of Seoul City instead of taking major political scandals already waiting for investigation and indictment. In the midst of widespread concerns about legality and fairness of the CIO in Korean society, it remains to be seen how actively and fairly the CIO will cope with corruption issues involving high-ranking officials to define its own identity, let alone the question of how long it will be able to survive. //
