The fight against corruption is like a therapy to cure a disease. It should not just address the symptom but help build the immune system up to reduce the chances for officials to become corrupt.

That is why we should never be complacent with a certain number of corrupt officials we have unearthed in a year or the number of cases authorities has cracked.

What is encouraging from last year's crackdown figures is the fact that more than 180,000 leading officials at various levels have reported where their spouses and offspring are working. This is important progress, given the fact that thousands of officials have shifted their financial savings abroad by first emigrating their spouses or children abroad. The officials themselves then go abroad at a proper time.

As early as 2004, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China began the practice of keeping such information on file on a trial basis. It has now been implemented nationwide as compulsory for leading officials.

But the number of officials who have reported this is a fraction among the millions of leading officials at all levels and in different institutions.

The remote city of Altay in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region became the first city to launch on a trial basis the practice of government officials declaring their properties last year, more than 20 years after the idea was first proposed in 1988. This suggests how hard it has been to employ any preemptive measure against the abuse of power.

Look at the figures last year: More than 5,000 government delegations that were destined for overseas trips were canceled; more than 24,000 leading officials handed in cash, bonds or coupons worth 160 million yuan ($23.5 million) that they illegally received; more than 1,000 houses that had been illegally occupied by leading officials were confiscated. The statistics show how serious some leading officials have abused their power and how hard the fight will be in the future.

The report that 67 officials including the director and deputy directors of the bureau of land and resources in the city of Lishui, Zhejiang province, were found to have abused their power by accepting bribes last year speaks volumes for how weak our corruption prevention mechanism is at the local level.

Despite the repeated call from central authorities every year to intensify the fight and to establish a preemptive anti-corruption mechanism, there is a long way to go before power can be effectively kept in check.

Strong oppositions from officials have slowed the process of implementing an anti-corruption measure. It is even harder to keep them from not turning out to be scarecrows that become useless in the end.

The central authorities' determination to fight against corruption is certainly beyond doubt. We know it is not easy to keep power under effective control. Yet, we have enough reason to feel optimistic because the fight is in the right direction - to preempt rather than just fight the abuse of power.