For more than a decade, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has used a storm of corruption probes and loyalty campaigns to bring the country's officials to heel. Now, as Mr. Xi, 73, prepares to claim five more years in power, he is complaining that some officials are still disloyal, apathetic and corrupt, and has said that tougher measures are needed.
The relentlessness of Mr. Xi's campaign was on display this month when the Communist Party announced an investigation into Huang Qifan, the former mayor of Chongqing, a city in southwest China. Mr. Huang had remained prominent after leaving office and had survived the downfall of several party officials under whom he had served. Such investigations almost always end with the official's imprisonment. The news came just before the party's elite Central Committee gathered in Beijing, where several hundred officials are expected to lay the groundwork for Mr. Xi to secure a fourth term as party leader next year.
The party is preparing for its next congress in late 2027, when Mr. Xi must appoint a new cohort of younger officials. Experts say that backdrop may explain his renewed fixation on enforcing obedience. Neil Thomas of the Asia Society Policy Institute said Mr. Xi's first priority is a stronger Communist Party, which he sees as the prerequisite for a stronger China. Another term would cement Mr. Xi's status as China's most dominant leader in decades, particularly because he has no obvious successor. Membership of the Central Committee has also been thinned by purges, falling from 376 members in 2022 to 315 at last year's meeting, with attendance this week possibly around 300 or fewer.
Mr. Xi has compared corrupt officials to diseased trees, saying the party should "pull out the sick trees that should be pulled out, chop down the ones that should be chopped down." His remedy is "self-revolution," a program of constant inspections, self-evaluations and criticism sessions. Punishments are not slowing: in 2024, inspectors disciplined 69 officials at provincial or ministerial level and 35,000 at county level, up from 49 and 24,000 in 2023. The campaign has been most intense in the military, where China's topmost general, Zhang Youxia, was detained earlier this year on accusations of corruption and disloyalty.
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