Counteraction on East Asian countries' corruption

PATHUM THANI, THAILAND, July 25 (TNA) - Scholars have presented academic research papers regarding corruption in China, Japan and the Republic of Korea as lessons for corruption wipeout in Thailand. Speaking at a recent seminar, entitled “Corruption Counteraction in East-Asia Countries:Experience and Importance for Thailand”, held at Thammasat University, Rangsit Campus, on the outskirts of Bangkok, Honorary Professor Doctor Surachai Sirikrai of the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University (TU), and other scholars of the TU Institute of East-Asian Studies expressed their concerns over Thailand’s long-running corruption, pointing out that the Kingdom will never overcome the corruption vicious cycle unless Thai leaders strictly uphold ethical morality and law enforcement. The scholars acknowledged that China, Japan and South Korea in the past shared the same grounds of corruption, namely bribe, nepotism and irrational state budget spending. Prof. Dr. Surachai gave an example for corruption solution by raising China's 11 strong anti-corruption regulations introduced by incumbent Chinese President Xi Jinping, under which state budget spending in all areas is strictly and rationally controlled, while Japan has resorted to political and bureaucratic reforms focused on law amendments on political parties' subsidy and access to information by government officials and South Korea has downsized state enterprises, through privatisation plans, for the sake of more easily transparency probes, leading to steadily declining corruption cases in the three nations from 2009-2013. Prof. Dr. Surachai said what he had found from a research paper, entitled “Consideration in Cause, Category and Solution of Corruption in South Korea, China and Japan”, corruption was likely to be caused by the governments' intervention in local sectors and restriction of competition potential of people. Prof. Dr. Surachai suggested that a policy on allowing market mechanisms to function well appear to be a successful solution to corruption in each country. Yupin Klaimon, a scholar at the TU Institute of East-Asian Studies, emphasized, meanwhile, the importance of socio-cultural communities, in which campaigns are launched to create and sustain public awareness on anti-corruption and people are encouraged to help watch out corrupt practices. (TNA)