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Police officers are among those in the cross hairs of an ongoing “rectification” campaign. Photo: AP

China says nearly 180,000 cadres caught in blitz as Communist Party tightens grip

  • Almost 2,000 working in courts, prosecutors’ offices, prisons, police and national security have been charged over violations
  • The rest have been disciplined or reprimanded in what is seen as an effort to strengthen loyalty ahead of next year’s leadership reshuffle
Xi Jinping

Nearly 180,000 cadres working in China’s judicial and law enforcement authorities have been reprimanded or punished for “violating party discipline and the law” during an ongoing blitz.

Of those, some 1,985 people working in the courts, prosecutors’ offices, prisons, police and in national security had been charged as of the end of July, the leading group in charge of the campaign said on Monday.

Another 3,466 were disciplined within the ruling Communist Party, and most of the others were reprimanded for their actions.
They were targeted in a continuing “rectification” campaign that began in February, after a trial in late 2020, and will run until at least the end of the year.

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said it was an effort to consolidate the president’s grip on power ahead of next year’s party congress, at which he is expected to secure a third term.

Xi Jinping believes the political-legal system is the most important because it is a disciplinary force,” Wu said. “[Moves like this suggest] he is not very confident despite outsiders saying he will a hundred per cent get a third term.”

06:45

SCMP Explains: How does the Chinese Communist Party operate?

SCMP Explains: How does the Chinese Communist Party operate?

The leading group said more than 90 per cent of those reprimanded were in the lowest ranks of civil servants working in leadership positions. But a higher proportion of the higher-ranked cadres from city- and county-level organs had “seriously” violated party discipline and the law.

Chen Yixin, secretary general of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the top agency in charge of law enforcement, said such violations by more senior cadres “often involved a mix of judicial corruption, political corruption and economic corruption”.

Other offences included “minor corruption” such as interfering with cases, accepting meals from people involved in cases and neglecting to record case notes, said Chen, who heads the leading group.

Separately, Dong Jingwei, vice-minister of state security, highlighted work in “non-traditional areas” of national security – including economic espionage, biosafety, and network and data security – during Monday’s update in Beijing.

According to Wu from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, national security was mentioned despite the low number of cases in a bid to boost the perception that foreign countries wanted to jeopardise China. “They can say this is a crisis and therefore internal control can be tougher,” he said.

Wu said the campaign on party discipline and law was a way to strengthen loyalty ahead of next year’s leadership reshuffle, noting that it was headed by Chen, who worked under Xi when he was party chief of Zhejiang from 2002 to 2007.

“The general message [to cadres] is: you all need to be careful about your own career given that the party has such tight control,” Wu said.

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