Beating corruption is gaining more attention at this year’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings than at previous sessions. China is strengthening cooperation with APEC members, including the U.S., in the fight against corruption, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department Wednesday.
U.S. officials say that APEC members should cooperate in fighting commercial bribery. They also called on APEC members to share information about crimes, retrieve criminals’ assets and support each other in investigations.
"It’s not so much about arrive at one rule, because we all know that we have very different legal systems," APEC senior official Wang Xiaomin said regarding the mutual understanding of legal procedures in China and the U.S.
"It’s really trying to understand which each countries rules and regulations are. If somebody, let’s say, left China or left the U.S. to go somewhere else with illegal funds, then what you need to know, for example, Chinese officials, need to know is if you want to get somebody back to China, or their illegally obtained funds, you need to know what U.S. regulations are, what kind of evidence is needed. So it’s not attempted to make everybody have one rule, or law, because that’s going to be impossible. But its more to understand what the requirements are."