Xi Jinping sends corruption warning on trip to China’s northwest
- Chinese president tours area of luxury villa scandal two years ago, delivering message on political loyalty, observer says
- Urges officials to press on to meet poverty alleviation targets despite coronavirus-induced downturn
The trip was widely reported on Thursday by state media, which highlighted the president’s visits to a national reserve in the Qinling Mountains, rural families who have benefited from the government’s anti-poverty programmes and factories and firms ramping up production after the coronavirus shutdown. Xi was also shown taking a night walk through a busy tourist and commercial district in the provincial capital of Xian.
It was also just one week before a meeting of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s top legislative body, when the deputies are expected to review a number of bills, including a biosecurity law, and the country’s economic outlook.
The coronavirus epidemic has forced the top leadership to postpone the annual NPC meeting; the Standing Committee meeting next week is expected to shed light on when the gathering will be held.
“From now on, any officials who come to serve in Shaanxi must learn from this lesson [of luxury villas in Qinling Mountains] and don’t make the same mistakes again. Instead, they should be at the forefront of protecting this environment,” Xi was quoted by state media as saying on Monday.
The president was referring to a political storm in the province two years ago when dozens of senior Shaanxi officials repeatedly ignored Xi’s specific directives to investigate the illegal construction of luxury villas in the mountains. The officials were later sacked or jailed for corruption.
Zhu Lijia, a professor with the state-run Chinese Academy of Governance, said Xi’s “lesson” was not just about protecting the environment but also about political loyalty.
“The Qinling Mountains are a typical case of natural ecology as well as political ecology,” Zhu said. “The officials ignored six written directives by Xi.”
State media reported that Xi had given half a dozen sets of instructions from 2014 to 2018, demanding a full investigation into the villas, but local officials tried to fob him off by reporting that the problem had been resolved.
Speaking at a meeting with provincial leaders on Thursday, Xi acknowledged that the coronavirus outbreak had put huge pressure on China’s economy and its major targets for the year.
Nevertheless, the leaders needed to press on to achieve the goals, including lifting everybody above the poverty line, he said.
“The targets looked fairly easy last year, but [economic] growth has slowed significantly and achieving these targets has now become difficult,” Zhu said.
Three weeks ago, Liu Yong, a senior official at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, publicly acknowledged that families who had previously escaped poverty might suffer because of the pandemic and they would need further help if Beijing was to achieve its anti-poverty target by the end of this year.
“Xi seems determined to meet his end-of-year poverty goals, though no respectable economist thinks output this year will meet the necessary targets,” said Richard McGregor, a senior fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
During a televised discussion with a family on the trip, Xi said authorities needed to ensure that people lifted above the poverty line found jobs. McGregor said the comment underlined Xi’s pessimism about what was in store after this year.
“Local officials might be able to pump up income for a year, but it wouldn’t be self-sustaining beyond the target date,” he said.
