Sweating and on the verge of tears: Chinese officials carry out self-criticism on TV

Senior officials revising their self-criticisms nearly 30 times, sweating and "almost in tears", confessing their mistakes and accusing others.

Such meetings used to be closed-door sessions. But this time they were held in front of state TV cameras, and with president and party chairman Xi Jinping sitting next to them.

The "democratic life meetings" were spread over four half-days in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei this week.

The concept was introduced by the communists in Yanan in the early 1940s and hailed by the party as a tool to bring democracy to the party by allowing people to voice their opinions about one another.

However, they have become better known as platforms for power struggles. Late party chief Hu Yaobang was sacked at a "democratic life meeting" in January 1987.

According to People's Daily, Hebei's senior officials started preparing for the meetings in mid-July. Coached by a central supervisory team, senior provincial officials collected 171,200 suggestions and grass-roots complaints from 8,000 villages via 24,000 village officials.

After that, they held one-to-one exchanges, then were required to write self-criticism reports. Most of them had to revise their articles several times, and in one case 29 times.