澳大利亚愿助中国境外反腐追赃

Australian authorities announced the cooperation plan last week.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the comment at a recent press conference.

"China has been actively seeking bilateral judicial assistance with other countries. We have signed agreements on judicial assistance, extradition, transfer of convicted persons with around 63 countries, including Australia."

In July, as a part of President Xi Jinping's broader crackdown on graft, China announced an operation called Fox Hunt to trace corrupt officials who have fled overseas with their ill-gotten gains.

China says that the US, Canada and Australia are the three most popular destinations for suspected Chinese economic criminals.

Professor Feng Xia is with China University of Political Science and Law.

She says although China and Australia don't have an extraction agreement, actions can be taken under the umbrella of the United Nations.

"We don't have an extraction agreement with Australia, but we are both members of the UN anti-corruption convention. So the convention provides a channel for us to trace and extract corrupt officials. "

The announcement of joint actions comes just days after Australia introduced a new "premium" investor visa program.

The program allows applicants to gain permanent residency of Australia one year after making an investment of 15 million AU Dollars to the country.

Feng Xia says this would hamper China's efforts in fighting corruption.

"Most importantly, they don't ask where that money comes from, which means, for those corrupt officials, as long as they collect enough money, despite it being illegal, they can apply for the visa."

Feng adds that even there is a procedure for background check, one year is too short to find out the money are clear or not.

For CRI, I'm Cao Yuwei.