China’s top anti-corruption watchdog slams county-level inspectors for not being strict enough in close circles

‘Not one county-level cadre detained in more than a quarter of counties each year’, according to article in CCDI magazine by case supervision office

More direct supervision of county-level cases by higher bodies needed to check ‘circle of acquaintances’ effect, article says

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Beijing is seeking to keep up the pressure as President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign enters a second decade. Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:00pm, 22 Mar 2024

China’s top corruption watchdog has pulled up officers at the lowest level for not being strict enough in their “circle of acquaintances” saying that over a quarter of the country’s counties had failed to make “even one” disciplinary detention each year.

A review of anti-corruption cases in the past decade had shown that graft inspectors in China’s more than 2,800 counties mostly went after general Communist Party members instead of officials, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said in the latest issue of its biweekly magazine.

Moreover, the detention of most county-level officials for corruption involved assigned cases from their superiors, according to the party’s highest supervisory body.

“There was not one county-level cadre detained in more than a quarter of the counties around China each year,” the article said, slamming a lack of emphasis on corruption cases that “take place among the people”.

It also called for more direct supervision of corruption cases by higher bodies to offset the presence of “circles of acquaintances” in most counties – referring to the risk of probes being undermined by personal familiarity between the accused and investigating officers.

The call comes as Beijing seeks to keep up the pressure on party ranks, with President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign entering a second decade.