Countries from the Asia-Pacific region have agreed on Saturday to endorse Beijing's "Anti-Corruption Declaration," which is set to establish a joint network between the countries to crack down on cross-border corruption. It's a move consistent with a major corruption crackdown in China.

After the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting held from November 7 to 8, China's anti-graft body has announced the detailed work plan of the network of Anti-Corruption and Law Enforcement Agencies (ACT-NET), which was set up in August to share information on corruption and deny safe haven to anyone engaged in corruption. The anti-graft agency's secretariat is set to be based in China.

"We resolve to strengthen pragmatic anti-corruption cooperation, especially in key areas such as denying safe haven, extraditing or repatriating corrupt officials, enhancing asset recovery efforts, and protecting market order and integrity," the APEC group statement noted.

It also said that the APEC members will enhance international cooperation, information and intelligence exchange and experience sharing among anti-corruption and law enforcement practitioners through the ACT-NET and other platforms.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters that the declaration and the establishment of the network are moves in a bid to hunt for corrupt officials who have escaped abroad.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday called for strengthened law enforcement cooperation between China and Canada in hunting down fugitives at-large and recover their ill-gotten assets at a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said Canada has no intention to "harbor fugitives", and is willing to collaborate with China.

Li Chengyan, an anti-graft expert with Peking University, told the Beijing Times that many corrupt officials would choose the US, Australia and Canada, which are countries that have not signed extradition treaties with China.

These countries, as Tang Guoqiang, head of China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, said, also joined the signing of the declaration which sent a message that the whole Asia-Pacific region will join hands to fight corruption.

Hu Xingdou, a political science professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that in the past, China had to track down corrupt officials through the foreign affairs ministry, and taking legal actions such as issuing an arrest warrant. With the establishment of the anti-corruption network, the process becomes more structural and organized, he said.

The Chinese government launched an anti-corruption campaign called "Fox Hunt" in July and has located 180 people from over 40 countries as of October 29. Forty-four of them were suspected of siphoning off thousands of millions of yuan in alleged ill-gotten assets.