BEIJING, April 3-- Only when one is upright, can one ask others to be upright.

Like Caesar's wife, the discipline agency and its inspectors themselves must be beyond reproach. The investigation of a senior Guangdong official at the very heart of the struggle against corruption shows that the day when even the agency itself is above suspicion is still a long way off.

Zhong Shijian was a force to be reckoned with in Guangdong province, as deputy chief of the discipline inspection commission under the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), head of Guangdong's supervision department and director of the corruption prevention bureau. Now He is suspected of "serious violations of discipline and law."

Officials like Zhong are supposedly central to the anti-corruption campaign. The CPC's discipline inspection commissions set the standard and commission officials should be exemplars of good conduct, working within and for the rules. Their roles are significant, even among Party officials.

However, it is inevitable that some wolves disguised as sheep are at large. After the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) decided to purify the group, 1,575 discipline officials were punished last year. Wei Jian and Cao Lixin, two senior CCDI officials, were removed from their posts last May.

No one is above the law and discipline inspectors are no exception. An anti-corruption agency is not a safe house. Discipline officials are not immune. They are subject to the same - if not more - pressures and temptations as any other officials.

It is inevitable that some inspectors will abuse their positions, doing untold harm the image of discipline authorities and the fight against corruption as a whole.

To address these problems, discipline officials must first of all conduct themselves honorably. They must be the yardsticks of discipline and morality.