A woman wearing a mask walks past a wall painted with China's national flag in central Beijing, October 9, 2014. Beijing issued a yellow alert for air pollution on Wednesday with smog forecast to continue for the next three days until Saturday, said the B
A woman wearing a mask walks past a wall painted with China's national flag in central Beijing, October 9, 2014. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

China's drop by 20 places in the Corruption Index released by Transparency International on Tuesday seems to say that the anti-corruption campaign by Chinese President Xi Jinping is not effective in wiping out graft.

In 2013, China placed 80th, but for 2014, it slipped to 100th. Lower ranking is a sign of more corruption, which red-hot economies like China is undergoing.

Transparency International Chair Jose Ugax explained that "Fast-growing economies whose governments refuse to be transparent and tolerate corruption, create a culture of impunity in which corruption thrives."

But Beijing officials doubted the report's findings and said they would look into how objective and neutral the study was.

"It is well known to the world the Chinese government is resolute in cracking down on corruption, and the achievements by us in the corruption campaign are well known to the world," VOANews quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

She pointed out that China's index score and ranking in the 2014 report "is seriously inconsistent with the achievements made by China in the anti-corruption campaign."

While the report did recognised the big number of Chinese officials who have been convicted for corruption, it pointed out that most of the trials were conducted behind closed doors.

As a result of China's anti-corruption campaign, several top-ranking military officials have reportedly committed suicide out of shame of being exposed.

The report named Denmark as the least corrupt nation, while it was a two-way tie for the most corrupt country between Somalia and North Korea.

YouTube/The Times of India