Living in Beijing isn't easy. For a young civil servant surnamed Kong, who has bought a 140-square-meter apartment, the burden of debt is measured in decades. But Kong is hopeful that after retiring, he will be able to pay off the mortgage and live comfortably.

This is partly due to a new plan, drafted by the Development Research Center of the State Council, which suggests that the government should set up a "clean pension" system, which would give government officials with a clean work record a much more substantial pension, in an effort to dissuade them from resorting to corruption.

"Most of us won't risk our lives and careers for corruption. If we can get extra money because of that, why shouldn't we feel great?" Kong asked.

As the name suggests, the proposed "clean pension" plan, which will be discussed at the highly anticipated Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in a week, would be another part of the government's crackdown on corruption.

A share would be deducted from officials' salaries and paid back after they retired, with the government putting in an equal share - effectively doubling it - as long as they did not engage in corruption. But the public are already asking why officials should need to be paid to do their duty, and whether or not this is just an attempt by officials to get extra benefits.

Failed attempts

It is not the first time plans such as this have been put forward. In May, a former senior official with the Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security said that clean pension systems had already been under consideration.

Since Liuyang, Hunan Province, implemented a pilot project in 2002, another 18 provinces and cities across China, including Hangzhou in Zhejiang and Jiangmen in Guangdong, have introduced such systems to local level government departments and affiliated institutes.

Yun Jie, director of the administration research department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that in theory, these kinds of systems could help prevent corruption as they would require increased supervision to qualify for the bonus pension payments.

However, he said that at the moment it wasn't a practical solution because a lack of transparency means that officials find it easy to hide their incomes.

Yun said that according to media reports and documents that have been made available, the pilot clean pension programs don't specify precise standards for judging whether an official is corrupt or not; they just say "violating laws and discipline."

"With such a vague standard, it is highly likely that the schemes will overlook many corrupt officials, which will not benefit the anti-graft campaign. Publicizing the assets of officials is a necessary step toward measuring whether they are corrupt or honest," Yun said.

Li Jingping, a professor specializing in anti-graft studies, from Xi'an Jiaotong University, in 2012 wrote in a paper co-authored by PhD candidate Han Rui, that one key problem with these clean pension systems is that they lack supervision.

The paper noted that in the majority of those projects, the clean pensions were paid by local finance departments, which required approval from local discipline watchdogs.

The paper suggested that this could cause overlap between different government agencies, and pointed out that because there are no overarching laws regarding the establishment, management or supervision of clean pension systems, they are likely to be poorly managed.

The pension scheme introduced in Jiangmen in 2010 was shut down by the provincial discipline watchdog after just two months' operation, as it lacked legal foundations and did not have permission from the central government, the Nanfang Daily reported Saturday.

"If the country wants to use a clean pension system as a weapon to fight against corruption, then it needs to be grounded in legislation, and there needs to be more government transparency first," Yun said.

Yun said that the clean pension plans would put pressure on the budgets of local governments and are unfair on taxpayers. He suggested that officials could pay the entire balance toward the pension funds.

Carrot or the stick?

Clean pension systems have been implemented in other countries such as Singapore for many years. Experts say that its clean pension system has contributed to the low corruption rate within the Singapore government.

However, Ren Jianming, a professor of anti-graft studies with Beihang University, told the Global Times that the Singapore system is quite different - rather than offering rewards for good behavior, it punishes bad officials. "Money taken from Singapore officials acts as a deposit or guarantee for the those officials who behave well and have a good attitude. If they become corrupt, they lose the money," Ren said.

Ren said that this ensures that corruption is risky in Singapore.

In China, non-government employees, as well as their employers, need to pay into funds for their pension, which generally stands at about 60 to 70 percent of their regular wage.

But officials don't need to pay into these funds, with their pensions - known as a "retirement wage," which can be around 80 percent of their regular wages - coming directly from government coffers.

Yun said that this gives officials the opportunity to make extra money outside of their regular pension. "It means that we reward officials for improper behavior. If we are designing a pension system to combat corruption, it should replace the current pension system," Yun said, pointing out that the present plans wouldn't involve scrapping the current system.