After the incident with Yang, officials fleeing the country during study tours have become a top concern of anti-corruption authorities, which regard it as a major challenge.

Prohibiting overseas sightseeing tours on public money was listed high on the work agenda of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Ministry of Supervision for 2008. The CCDI has publicized concrete measures, including intensifying supervision over study trips and increasing control of expenses.

On October 16, 2008, the Ministry of Supervision, the National Audit Office and three other government departments jointly issued a temporary regulation on the expenses used by government officials during overseas trips. It stipulated that the Central Government would exercise strict control over the travel budget of officials on study tours.

On December 27, the CCDI, the highest CPC authority involved in anti-corruption work, announced that between November 2007 and November 2008, discipline inspection and supervision organs at all levels of government dealt with around 140,000 new cases and punished over 150,000 officials, of whom nearly 5,000 were of county level or above. The investigations recovered nearly 7 billion yuan ($1 billion).

"Recent years have witnessed a steady increase of government officials investigated and punished. Yet the momentum in curbing corruption should be kept up," said Gan Yisheng, a member of the CCDI.

On December 26, the CPC Central Committee convened a conference presided over by General Secretary Hu Jintao, where top leaders analyzed the overall anti-corruption situation and set a plan for 2009.

Hu said that despite noticeable achievements in 2008, corruption still exists widely in some sectors, such as property development and the financial sector. He added that anti-corruption work faces new challenges.