Corruption divides the world into two groups – those who engage in it and those who suffer from it. Defined as "the abuse of public office for private gain," it involves a multitude of activities including bribery, embezzlement, nepotism and cronyism, money laundering and tax evasion to gain illicit benefits. 

The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimates that corruption costs at least 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars annually - five percent of global GDP. According to the World Bank, businesses and individuals worldwide pay more than one trillion U.S. dollars in bribes each year. The overwhelming figures alone provide naked statistical evidence that corruption imposes a dear price on an already ailing global economy.

But corruption also wreaks havoc in an immeasurable way. Almost ubiquitous in everyday life, it puts social trust and ethnic values in jeopardy, whether on petty or on grand scales. And it's the impoverished that bear the brunt of corruption as they are often denied access to basic services including housing, healthcare, education and social security, which further widens the wealth gap and hence corrodes social fabric. That, in turn, further leads to political instability and fosters violence within societies and nations.

At its worst, corruption can kill. In the most impoverished parts of the world, officials who engage in shady dealings siphon humanitarian aid intended for poor or disaster-stricken regions, reducing the quality or quantity of those goods or services. Nepotism further exacerbates this uneven distribution of relief, leaving vulnerable populations increasingly marginalized.

Today marks the 15th International Anti-Corruption Day. Back on December 9, 2003, the United Nations (UN) held the landmark high-level conference and adopted the UN Convention against Corruption, which has since then been the only legally-binding, universal anti-corruption instrument. China was one of the first countries to ratify the convention and has intensified its efforts in the tough battle over the years. More than 1.5 million corrupt officials have been punished since 2012, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xi Jinping vowed to crack down on both "tigers" and "flies" - high-ranking leaders and lowly bureaucrats - in late 2012, as part of the endeavor to construct a clean government. Over the past six years, some 350,000 officials - two percent of cadres at all ladders of the government apparatus - have been disciplined, according to the latest statement released by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC.

As shown in the statement, 68,500 cadres were punished for official extravagance for the first months of this year alone. These officials, ranking from the ministerial and provincial level to the county level or below, mainly received a jail sentence.

To facilitate international cooperation during the campaign, the CCDI launched an operation called "Skynet" in 2015 to net corrupt fugitives living overseas, following the Fox Hunt program in the previous year. Under this graft-busting operation, China has signed 54 extradition treaties and 63 mutual legal assistance treaties with 71 countries.

Since Qiao Jianjun, the former director of a grain storage facility, and his ex-wife were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in March 2015 on immigration and money laundering charges, foreign lands are no longer a safe haven for corrupt officials.

So far 4,833 fugitives, including 995 state functionaries, have been returned to China from over 120 countries and regions. Among them, 54 were on the list of China's 100 most-wanted suspects, all of whom had Interpol Red Notices issued. Assets worth more than 10.3 billion yuan (1.5 billion U.S. dollars) have been recovered in the meantime.

From 2012 to 2017, China edged up three places to 77th in the global corruption perception ranking issued by Transparency International every year.

The country expanded its far-reaching anti-corruption campaign with the establishment of a new agency – the National Supervisory Commission – earlier in the year. Yao Jinqi, former deputy head of Zhejiang's Xinchang County, was extradited back to China from Bulgaria last month, the first successful extradition case since the setup of the commission.

While the battle continues to topple top figures in the country's officialdom, China started stamping out corruption-related activities in the film industry and the zippy hi-tech sector.

The disappearance of China's highest-paid actress Fan Bingbing following accusations of tax evasion this summer captivated headlines and solicited wild guesses about how celebrities make a fortune. Over a short span of four months, Fan fell from grace to a symbol of corruption in the entertainment industry.

She resurfaced in public life in October with an apology for having violated the law and an agreement to pay around 884 million yuan (129 million U.S. dollars) in overdue taxes and penalties.

The country's tax authorities announced new rules for the film industry in June to prevent celebrities from accumulating enormous wealth by evading tax and under-reporting their incomes. Under the rules, actors cannot earn more than 70 percent of the cast's wages combined or over 40 percent of production costs.

Days ago, Yang Weidong, the chief of Youku – Alibaba's video streaming platform - was detained on suspicion of involvement in a corruption scandal. His arrest came as the latest case in corporate corruption in China's hi-tech industry.

As such, though corruption can pervade various levels of society, regardless of status or background, the solution is certain to be zero tolerance for those involved.