The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) opens a website to allow people to tip off the CCDI to corruption and other disciplinary violations. [Photo/IC]

The Communist Party of China Central Committee has published a new set of rules for disciplinary penalties as it moves to strengthen the management of its 88 million Party members. The newly-revised rules, which are meant to play an even more pre-emptive role in preventing misconducts by Party members from developing into criminal activities.

The previous Party rules were criticized for not setting a clear boundary between Party discipline and the law, with nearly half of the disciplinary regulations overlapping with existing laws.

These similarities lowered the criteria for Party members and failed to show the Party's advanced nature, which has been championed by the CPC leadership.

The new rules replace the overlapping clauses with provisions ordering the Party's members to "play an exemplary role in observing the law". Thus, the Party's regulations, while related to the country's laws, are now distinguished from them.

The rules, which include six kinds of "disciplinary negative lists", include harsh and consistent penalties for wrongdoers within the party. If the new regulations are enforced well, they are expected to help identify any misconduct by Party members at an early stage.