Will China's 'big tigers' band together to fight Xi's graft probe?

A top mainland prosecutor has rejected a warning from academics that high-level officials who have fallen in the anti-corruption campaign will join forces to seek retribution, saying this underestimated the leadership's capabilities and control.

"The 'big tigers fighting back together' theory is an incorrect assessment resulting from underestimating the party's leadership and control over the anti-corruption campaign, as well as its popular support and positive energy," said Qiu Xueqiang, deputy head of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, or state prosecutor.

His comments appeared in the a journal of the Central Party School, published on Monday.

Qiu admitted it was possible that an official assigned to fight corruption would end up being punished for taking bribes himself, but that would not be the result of retaliation by the "big tigers", using President Xi Jinping's term for corrupt high-level officials.

Media speculation that the central leadership was shifting its focus away from corrupt cadres was also a mistaken observation, Qiu said. "If the effort becomes weaker, the corruption that has been curbed will rebound."

Qiu also rejected the idea corrupt officials should be pardoned as long as they apologised and returned their ill-gotten gains, which was a view adopted by Hong Kong in the 1970s during its fight against corruption in the civil service and police force.