On the wall of cigarette and wine stores, there is often a poster reading, "gift cards redeemed." In a society where the gift culture prevails, prepaid shopping cards have evolved into a tool for bribery, tax dodges and money laundering. With the incoming October holiday, shopping cards will be more frequently used to grease all kinds of connections.

In May 2011, the State Council required real-name registration when purchasing or using gift cards worth more than 10,000 yuan ($1,582).

Yet according to media reports, things do not seem to have changed much over the past months since the central government started to overhaul gift card regulation in its anti-corruption war.

This mirrors the plight of China's tackling of corruption. The government is determined to raise the stakes corrupt individuals face. And the whole society does realize that anti-corruption must be a priority of national reform. Nevertheless, decision-making is easier than implementation, and it is quite hard to achieve a social consensus in reality.

At the top level, the central bank and the Ministry of Commerce regulate different kinds of prepaid gift cards.

But in everyday implementation, various government watchdogs all play some supervisory role, and it is unclear yet who should manage the real-name regulation of gift cards.

Moreover, many ordinary people calling for zero tolerance for corruption are practitioners of tacit rules themselves.

In order to profit from gift cards with large face value, shopping malls are full of tricks to help mask gift cards for illegal use. Bribers and tax evaders are more than happy to accept the services, which help avoid real-name regulation of prepaid shopping cards.

The anti-corruption battle reflects not only the government departments' capability to work together and fix institutional loopholes, but also people's tolerance of hidden rules. While prevailing corruption hinders social development, the level of our development in turn determines to what degree we are really confident and capable of cleansing corruption.

All these are interlinked. It can be predicted that gift cards, as well as some other gray areas, cannot be purified if obstacles in other social fields remain. While the authorities continue to stipulate new laws and consolidate regulations, the public should also understand that they bear some responsibility in besieging corruption.