China’s main fear is threat to power from corruption crisis, says senior Communist Party official
Wang Jiarui, head of the party’s international department, says being in power since 1949 has bred a corruption problem
What China’s Communist Party fears most is a crisis over corruption which would threaten its hold on power, but it is confident people will stand by its efforts to combat the problem, a senior official said on Tuesday.
President Xi Jinping has launched a sweeping campaign against graft since assuming the party leadership in 2012 and presidency in 2013 – warning, like others before him, that the problem is so severe it could affect the party’s grip on power.
The Communist Party is keenly aware one of the reasons its predecessor in China, the Nationalists, lost the Chinese civil war in 1949 was because of the terrible corruption under their rule, costing them public support
In unusually frank comments before a group of mostly Chinese and Western academics and smattering of diplomats, Wang Jiarui, head of the party’s international department, said being in power as long as the party had – since 1949 – had bred a corruption problem.
“Under such circumstances, certain people will naturally be spurned and kicked out, but if there are many such officials it will cause a crisis for the ruling party, though we’ve obviously not reached that stage,” Wang said.
“But what we are most concerned about and most worried about is precisely this problem,” he added.
Unlike in a democracy, China had no opposition party to take over from the communists should they falter, though the party was confident it could root out its bad elements and had so far been very effective, Wang said.
“Our party has our party discipline, our philosophy and our rules,” he said. “We will not lose our people, and the people will embrace us,” he added.