Roving Periscope: In just 3 months, China punishes 110k ‘corrupt’ officials

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the world’s second-largest political party with a membership of 96 million, is also the planet’s most corrupt organization. The way ordinary Pakistanis mock their corrupt and all-powerful Army as Namaloom (Anonymous) fearing reprisals, the common Chinese people identify the CCP simply as “the Party” (of the corrupt).

The CCP’s so-called “self-examination and self-correction” statistical report also supports that title, the Indo-Pacific Centre for Strategic Communications (IPCSC) has revealed.

Xi Jinping, ever since he became the President a decade ago, has been routinely punishing, imprisoning, or sacking “corrupt” officials, mostly his or the CCP’s critics. This is how he cemented his hold on the CCP, whose General Secretary he is, besides his other title as the Chairman of the Military Commission. A large number of senior CCP leaders and others he found inconvenient are cooling their heels for years in jails across China.

Not just the CCP members and officials, Xi Jinping has also punished billionaires like Alibaba Group chief Jack Ma and others to curtail their hold over the people. Other key officials punished on corruption charges included the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s General Guo Boxiong who was sentenced to life imprisonment. Many anti-Xi critics were summarily trialed in kangaroo courts and sent to jail.

Now, China’s official statistics reveal that as many as 111,000 members of the CCP were punished in the first quarter of this year (January-March 2023). They included provincial and provincial-level cadres, 633 department-level cadres, 669 district-level cadres, 1,000 township-level, and 15,000 general cadres, besides 76,000 executives in rural areas, businesses, etc.

The media said on Friday that official WeChat accounts of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervisory Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China recently released their monthly anti-corruption report, IPCSC said.

In April 2023, three central cadres were dismissed and more than 120 party members and department-level cadres were fined.

According to the media reports, key senior officials under investigation include Du Zhaocai, Member of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the General Administration of Sport of China; Li Xiaopeng, former Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of China Everbright Group Co., Ltd.; Pei Jun, Secretary of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Resources Bureau, Miao Shaowei, Member of the Standing Committee of the Ningde Municipal Committee of Fujian Province and Deputy Mayor, Li Lijian, Former Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Anyang Iron and Steel Group Co., Ltd., Zhang Yulong, Member of the Standing Committee of the Qianxinan Prefecture Committee of Guizhou Province, and Secretary General of the State Committee along several others.

The official monthly report revealed that, in the same quarter, disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies across the country received 776,000 petitions and reports, of which 231,000 were complaints and accusations, IPCSC reported.

Besides, data from the March 2023 anti-corruption monthly report released by the National Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC Central Committee shows that 7,021 violations were investigated and dealt with in March, involving 10,285 people.

After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (2012), the Xi Jinping government launched a massive anti-corruption campaign. Those publicly investigated and dealt with included state-level officials, deputy state-level officers, military commission members, dozens of ministerial-level officers, and hundreds of deputy ministerial-level officers.

A book, “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” about the anti-corruption movement, said the CCP has become the world’s largest corrupt political party.

“If you do not destroy the party and fight corruption, you will destroy the country,” it said.

But the Communist Party will not fight corruption lest it destroyed the party itself.

In the guise of fighting corruption, the party offers lip service by punishing a few cadres and letting other corrupt elements steer the party to keep it alive. The cult of the Party has come this far, and its sole purpose is to maintain power and prevent the decline of the Party, the reports said.