Abstract: New situations have appeared since the anticorruption movement was put forward at the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Due to the refractoriness of corruption， the task of combating corruption and building a clean government is destined hard and longlasting. To reduce and restrain the amount of corruption has been a new approach to promote the combat against corruption. To reduce the amount of corruption is to deal with what already happened in the past， and to restrain the amount of corruption is to face the problems that may appear in the future. These two aspects supplement and influence one another. At the request of overall strict governing of the Party， to bring the special advantage of the Chinese road of “combating corruption and building a clean government” into a full play is crucial for developing a healthy and scientific road. The Chinese road of “combating corruption and building a clean government” shall be characterized by the practice of “prevention first” and “punishing second”.

Key words: combating corruption, Chinese characteristics, “prevention first”, “punishing second”