Crime and Punishment

China’s anticorruption campaign enters 2018 with renewed vigor By Yuan Yuan

The government’s anti-graft campaign has made remarkable progress since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China ( CPC) in late 2012, and yet the battle is far from over. This was the message announced loud and clear at the latest session of the CPC’s anticorruption body.

Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, stressed that full and rigorous governance over the Party must be unswervingly imposed while delivering a speech at the second plenary session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the CPC on January 11.

“The Party itself and its members have gone through essential and profound changes,” Xi said. This, according to him, requires a higher quality of Party management and enhanced political and organizational functions of Party organs.

The CCDI plenary session was held for three days from January 11 to 13 in Beijing. On January 9, two days before the assembly was convened, Fang Fenghui, a member of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) and former Chief of staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, had been transferred to the military prosecution authority on suspicion of bribery.

Fang is not the first senior official to have been investigated in 2018. Feng Xinzhu, Vice Governor of Shaanxi Province, and Ji Xiangqi, Vice Governor of Shandong Province, were investigated for suspected corruption and violation of discipline on January 3 and 4, respectively.

“The investigation of two high-ranking officials on successive days demonstrates that China is determined to root out corruption, while also marking a good start for the anti-graft campaign this year,” Du Zhizhou, Deputy Director of the Clean Governance Research Center at Beihang University, told China Daily. Xi stressed the Party’s resolve in the face of corruption in his speech on January 11. He called for heroic action and determination in order to cope with the complexities of governing the nation. “We should push forward this campaign with a fearlessness that grabs the bull by the horns and a fighting spirit that never steps aside in face of the enemy,” Xi said.

Safeguarding the authority of the CPC Central Committee, the Party should develop itself into a dynamic Marxist ruling party that moves in synchrony with the times, is supported by the people, is brave in self-reform and survives all challenges and hardship, Xi said.

At the disciplinary session Xi called for more anti-corruption efforts to “fundamentally improve the political ecosystem of the Party.” While exercising strict governance, the Party will try its best to discover problems as early as possible to prevent officials from making irrevocable mistakes and to encourage them to correctly perform their duties.

Party members who hold high positions should be subject to higher and more rigorous standards, and placed under tighter scrutiny, Xi said.

“The speech delivered by General Secretary Xi displays a clarity of judgment on the current anti-corruption situation,” Gao Bo, an official from CCDI, told Xinhua News Agency. “In the past five years, we have solved many internal problems but this campaign is still a long way from completion. We must develop a positive and healthy political culture in the Party and improve the Party’s political ecosystem, stubbornly correcting misconduct in all its forms.”

This echoed Xi’s remarks in his report to the 19th CPC National Congress in October last year. “No place has been out of bounds, no stone left unturned, and no tolerance shown in the fight against corruption,” Xi said in the report. “The anticorruption campaign has been built into a crushing tide, and continues to be consolidated and developed.”

“Currently, the fight against corruption remains grave and complex, and the goal of strict Party governance should not be forsaken halfway. We must have the resolve and tenacity to persevere in the never ending fight against corruption,” said a communiqué adopted at the CCDI plenary session. “The most important thing is to tighten the Party’s political rules and disciplines,” it continued, calling for “better supervision over the political life of the Party and how its policies are being implemented.”

Fiveyear achievements

In December 2012, China’s central leadership issued the Eight-Point Frugality Rules, requiring government officials to strictly practice frugality and clean up undesirable work styles such as formalism, hedonism and extravagance. Practices such as the use of public funds to buy gifts, hold banquets and pay for entertainment activities have been strictly banned.

A high-profile anti-corruption campaign has swept across the country since then, leading to the downfall of a number of highlevel officials, known as “tigers,” and many lower-level ones, known as “flies.”

Among the “tigers” brought down by the campaign were Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; Bo Xilai, former Secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee; Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both former generals and vice chairs of the Central Military Commission; and Ling Jihua and Su Rong, former vice chairs of China’s top political ad-