China draws up list of ‘negatives’ to vet delegates to top Communist Party congress
Behaviour deemed unacceptable among would-be delegates to meetings later this year, which will oversee changes in the leadership, includes having a foreign passport
Holding a foreign passport or expressing doubts about Communist Party policies are among the behaviour that could get candidates disqualified from 2,300 coveted seats at China’s leadership reshuffle this year.
For the first time local party committees are using “negative lists” - including everything from bribe taking to involvement with illegal construction projects - to screen delegations to the 19th Party Congress, which will set China’s political hierarchy for the next five years.
A front-page article endorsing the moves in the party’s flagship People’s Daily newspaper on Monday showed the push has support from the highest levels.
“The party must not let unqualified people get nominated as party delegates,” the article said. It cited the efforts of the northern province of Hebei surrounding the capital Beijing where at least four potential delegates were disqualified after failing to meet the requirements, the paper said.
The clampdown represents President Xi Jinping’s latest attempt to fight perceptions of chronic corruption in China, which he has described as the greatest threat to almost seven decades of one-party rule. Some 1.2 million officials have been punished since Xi came to power in 2012 and launched an unprecedented anticorruption campaign, with targets ranging from local political bosses to the country’s former top general.
“The negative list and the new delegate-selection rules could help the party and party leaders bolster their authority among the public,” said Zhu Lijia, a public affairs professor at the state-run Chinese Academy of Governance in Beijing. “Leaders are trying to repair the party’s image after realising the party could lose the support of the public if its members continue to be corrupt.”