War on graft far from over, says Xi

China facing huge challenges as scourge is deeply ingrained

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned again that the country’s fight against deeply ingrained corruption is not yet over, and that the ruling Communist Party faces enormous challenges going forward, state media reported.

Since coming to power more than six years ago, Xi has overseen a sweeping campaign to root out graft, with dozens of senior officials jailed, including the much feared former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang.

Xi has warned, like others before him, that the party’s very survival is at stake, and the party has said the anticorruption battle will “always be on the road”.

Speaking to senior party officials, Xi said that since the party’s 18th congress, where Xi was appointed party boss in late 2012, the allout effort to enforce strict party discipline had achieved “notable results”. “But it is still far from being crowned with success,” Xi said in a report by state news agency Xinhua late on Wednesday.

“The outstanding problems in the party of impure thinking, impure politics, impure organisation and impure work styles has yet to be fundamentally resolved,” Xi added.

The party faces longterm, tough and unprecedented tests as it seeks to reform itself, he said, without giving any details.

“We must enhance our sense of being prepared for any eventualities and sense of responsibility,” Xi added.

The party must develop a good system to train, select, manage and assign officials, he said.

“When promoting and assigning an official, the criteria should be his or her integrity and merit, not background, and whether he or she is suitable for the position,” Xi said.