Anti-Corruption Struggles in China
Anti-corruption struggles in China have been a significant concern for the country's leaders, aimed at addressing widespread public dissatisfaction with corrupt practices among officials. Since Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he has emphasized the necessity of prosecuting both high-profile ("tiger") and lower-level ("fly") officials to restore public trust. Historical context reveals that public protests, such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, were initially sparked by discontent over corruption, highlighting the potential for public anger to threaten the stability of the Communist Party.
Over the years, multiple high-profile corruption cases have surfaced, with notable figures, including former Politburo member Bo Xilai and Railway Minister Liu Zhijun, facing severe consequences for their actions. Despite these efforts, corruption remains a persistent issue, often exacerbated by systemic favoritism and the extensive influence of the "princeling" class—descendants of influential party leaders—who have amassed significant wealth and power.
Social media has played a dual role in these struggles, amplifying public outrage while also leading to the suppression of dissent. Initiatives like the New Citizens’ Movement have sought to advocate for transparency and accountability, but participants have faced severe repercussions. Despite the government’s anti-corruption campaigns, criticism persists regarding the effectiveness and sincerity of these efforts, as they sometimes appear to reinforce existing power structures rather than address the root causes of corruption. As of early 2023, more than two million individuals have been prosecuted in these campaigns, though many observers argue that the underlying issues of corruption and inequality remain unaddressed.
Anti-Corruption Struggles in China
The dangerous potential of public anger over official corruption has worried China's leaders for decades. Assuming power in November 2012, Xi Jinping vowed to prosecute corrupt officials, both "tigers" and "flies." Tiananmen Square, remembered in the West as a pro-democracy protest, began as a demonstration against corruption. In the 1990s, President Jiang Zemin warned repeatedly of "dire consequences" if the Communist Party became corrupt, which occurred following the fall of the Soviet Union. In the 2000s, Hu Jintao said flatly, it "could cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state." Over eighty cabinet office officials were fired for misconduct during his decade in power. Nevertheless, riots throughout China against abuses by local party officials continued. Social media reflected and amplified the people's outrage. Xi Jinping stood in a contradictory position. As a child, he was one of the "princelings" whose families enjoyed privilege and preferment in the party hierarchy. Xi's family holds real estate and mining properties worth several billion dollars. While supporting prosecutions in high-profile corruption cases, Xi's administration suppressed the New Citizens' Movement, which called for financial disclosures by officials.
Key Events
- 1989—Protesters gather in Tiananmen Square to demand action against corruption.
- 2011—Villagers storm the party headquarters in Wukan and win concessions from the provincial government.
- 2012—New party chief Xi Jinping vows to prosecute corruption. He orders officials to curtail luxury spending.
- 2013—Railway minister Liu Zhijun is sentenced to death (commuted). Politburo member Bo Xilai becomes the highest-ranking official convicted of corruption (life sentence).
- January 2014—Leaked bank records show relatives of Xi Jinping, Wen Jiabao, and others hold accounts in the British Virgin Islands.
- January 2014—Transparency activist Xu Zhiyong goes on trial for disturbing public order.
Status
Xi Jinping continued the campaign against corruption in 2014. Chinese officials were briefed in late January about the upcoming trial of Zhou Yongkang, former minister of public security and former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the nation's top decision-makers. The officials were told Zhou would be charged with corruption, not political offenses, and the money amounts in the criminal charges would be less than expected because Zhou had used third parties to obscure the trail of evidence.
Analysts said there was a political motivation behind the prosecution. Zhou was an ally of Bo Xilai, who campaigned against Xi in 2012 to become the party's general secretary. The money amounts, critics said, would be high enough to merit prosecution but not so high as to enflame public anger against the party. In the early 2020s, China continued to fight corruption, though it remained a significant problem and a potential risk to the Chinese economy.
In-Depth Description
In the late 1980s, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Hu Yaobang pushed to liberalize China's economy and political system but partly fell in favor because he turned attention toward corruption. His investigation of wealth held by princelings—sons and daughters of CCP leaders from the 1949 revolution—infuriated former supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, who continued to exercise power behind the scenes. The 100,000 students who filled Tiananmen Square in 1989 chose the eve of Hu's funeral as the occasion to present their petition against corruption.
Another widely publicized, though smaller scale, protest erupted in September 2011 in Wukan, a village of 15,000 in Guangdong Province. Angry crowds took over government buildings and ran party officials out of town. Residents put up roadblocks and kept provincial police at bay for eleven weeks. The issue that provoked the uprising was the local party boss's expropriation of village land for real estate development, who pocketed the profit. The crisis escalated on December 4, when police stormed Wukan, arresting several protest leaders, including Xue Jinbo, a small-business owner. Xue's death in custody, his body showing signs of torture, drew press attention. Observers came from other communities to learn from Wukan's example. The provincial government at last agreed the villagers' complaints were justified. Wukan was allowed to hold new elections. The local party boss, who had been in power for more than forty years, and his deputy were stripped of party membership, and eighteen other officials were also punished. Similar protests flared up in communities near Wukan in January and February 2012.
Of the 180,000 "mass incidents" recorded in police files each year, an estimated 65 percent originate in disputes about land expropriation by party officials. Four million farmers lose land to the state every year, and 43 percent of all villages have been affected by land seizures at some point, according to surveys conducted by Renmin University since 1999. The frequency of expropriations increased after 2005. On average, villagers received $17,850 per acre for their land. Local authorities then resold the land for an average of $740,000 per acre. In February 2012, Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged the problem during a visit to Guangdong province, saying, "The root of the problem is that the land is the property of the farmers, but this right has not been protected as it should be."
It became apparent in the early 2020s that China's anti-corruption efforts produced inverse results—the better connections individuals and corporations possessed, the less likely they were to suffer the consequences of corrupt activities. The efforts simply increased the value of political connections by protecting the top elite. Nevertheless, by early 2023, more than two million individuals had been prosecuted under anti-corruption campaigns. China began a healthcare industry crackdown that was "unprecedented in the depth, breadth, and intensity."
Trials of High Officials
In the military, as in business and other aspects of Chinese society, preferment is strongly influenced by a system of personal relationships called "guanxi." Individuals who make important social connections, offer loyalty, and do favors are rewarded with promotions and postings that offer financial opportunities. In recent years, with the sharp rise in China's military spending, top leaders have expressed concern that officers reaching high rank through networking rather than ability sap the effectiveness of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). They made an example of Lieutenant General Gu Junshan, deputy director of PLA logistics, who was arrested in 2012. He was formally charged with taking a 6 percent kickback on selling a $330,000 property owned by the military. However, stories in the press emphasized the luxury goods carted out of his palatial home. Headlines said Gu had "charmed" his way to the top. Gu's predecessor, Wang Shouye, was convicted in 2006 of taking millions of dollars in bribes. Widespread resentment of military corruption led to a 2013 reform of license plate requirements designed to eliminate the use of military plates on personally owned luxury cars. Military license plates, which exempt drivers from traffic regulations, are sold routinely by corrupt officers.
In 2013, Liu Zhijun was sentenced to death (later reprieved) for misusing his power as railways minister from 2003 to 2011. During his time in office, government spending on railways soared as China completed the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train and lines to strategic outer provinces. By his arrest, Liu owned 374 houses and kept $130 million in cash. Social media users photographed him four times wearing luxury watches worth $60,000. In March 2013, shortly before Liu was sentenced, China announced a reorganization of the railway ministry, enabling closer oversight by higher authorities.
Bo Xilai was sentenced to life in prison in September 2013, the highest-ranking official convicted of corruption. His downfall began the year before when his wife was implicated in the murder of a British businessman who allegedly laundered $1.2 billion for her. Bo Xilai was charged with using his office to obstruct the murder investigation and accepting $3.3 million in bribes. As a member of the Politburo, Bo was one of the twenty-five most influential people in the country, and his crimes were the subject of daily stories in the media for months. While official reports depicted Bo's trial as a victory of party integrity and China's legal system, many analysts viewed the event as the purge of a rival by Xi Jinping. When Bo came under investigation in March 2012, he was campaigning to overtake Xi as the top candidate to become the new head of the CCP. Bo had support on the Politburo Standing Committee, and as party boss in Chongqing, he had built a populist base urging a return to a Mao-style revolutionary spirit. Convicting Bo of corruption, some said, was Xi Jinping's way of killing two birds with one stone.
Princeling Fortunes
Power and wealth have accumulated in the families of the CCP's top leadership. Princelings hold four of the seven seats on the Politburo Standing Committee. They hold key positions throughout the party hierarchy and in government-owned energy, mining, heavy industry, and banking companies. According to a 2011 report, the three wealthiest descendants of the Immortal Eight (Deng Xiaoping and seven allies) controlled assets equal to 20 percent of China's annual economic output.
Much of the wealth elite families gain goes to offshore accounts. A 2014 report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), based on data leaked from two firms that specialized in setting up financial hideaways, identified 22,000 clients in China with accounts overseas. The report named thirteen members of princeling families among the account holders, including Xi Jinping's brother-in-law and a son-in-law of Wen Jiabao. Wen was premier of China from 2003 to 2013 and an energetic spokesman against corruption. He is reported to have built a fortune of $2.7 billion. PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS, Credit Suisse, and international banks facilitated the creation of companies, trusts, and bank accounts in the British Virgin Islands, Cook Islands, and other tax-haven countries.
From the mid-1990s to the early 2010s, approximately 18,000 officials left China, taking at least $120 billion out of the country. Officials still in China but have moved family members and money overseas are common enough to have earned a nickname—"naked officials." About 90 percent of the officials at the top levels of the CCP have family members who live abroad.
New Citizens' Movement
While prosecuting corrupt officials in highly publicized trials, the government also took action against citizens who spoke out against corruption. In January 2014, trials began for eight New Citizens' Movement leaders on charges of "gathering crowds to disrupt public order." The gatherings were monthly meetings over lunch, where the group discussed issues and ideas for activism. The group's most controversial idea was that public officials should be required to make full financial disclosures. The New Citizens' Movement was organized in May 2012 by Xu Zhiyong, a law lecturer at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
The arrests of New Citizens' Movement members were part of a larger roundup of people who made public statements about corruption, especially on Weibo (China's Twitter) or other online media. Police detained hundreds of Internet users in 2013 for "spreading rumors." Most were released, but a few were identified as opinion leaders—known in state media as big Vs, for "verified." On August 10, 2013, the State Internet Information Office held an orientation for the big Vs, where officials laid down "seven bottom lines" as limits on commentary. Among these were the socialist system, national interests, and public order. In 2013, the government shut down about one hundred websites and blogs that gave information or opinion on misconduct by officials. The government was also prompt to take action against officials who were exposed online. A Renmin University study of twenty-four corruption cases from 2012 showed the officials were fired within forty days and sometimes in as little as twelve hours after an accusation was posted on the Internet.
Bibliography
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