Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday urged the Communist Party of China (CCP) to reform itself and intensify the fight against corruption, during the plenary session of the Party’s powerful anti-corruption body.
In an analysis of the results of the fight against corruption over the last decade, Xi highlighted an “overwhelming victory”, but warned that the situation was still “serious and complex”, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
The CPC secretary-general stressed the need to address the roots and conditions of corruption to ensure the country’s healthy development.
He stressed the importance of 2023 as the first year of implementing the principles established during the 20th CPC Congress, during which he was elected to a third term unprecedented among his predecessors in recent decades, and stressed that the Party’s reform It is essential to escape the “historic cycle of expansion and recession”.
According to Xinhua, around 470,000 corruption cases were filed by supervisory and disciplinary agencies in the first nine months of last year.
This resulted in the opening of investigations into 45 officials from the CPC Central Committee, the Party’s top leadership, the highest number in the last ten years.
Xi’s statements came after the Central Supervision and Disciplinary Commission, the anti-corruption arm of the Communist Party of China, announced on Monday that it will intensify pressure and punishments against cases of corruption in sectors such as finance, tobacco or sport, as part of its strategy to prevent and resolve “systemic corruption risks”.
The fight against corruption in the financial sector, which has been active for several years, has so far resulted in the indictment of several employees of regulatory bodies and senior management of companies.
The tobacco industry, of great economic importance in the tobacco-producing provinces of the center and south of the country, has been the target of illicit activities.
Authorities announced last October that Ling Chengxing, former chairman of the Chinese State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, is being investigated for alleged “serious violations” of the law.
Sport was not spared in 2023. Several members of the Chinese Football Association and even former Chinese coach Li Tie were accused of corruption. The president of the Chinese Super League, Liu Jun, was also removed for “regulatory violations”.
After coming to power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched an anti-corruption campaign, considered the most persistent and broad in the history of the People’s Republic.
The campaign has led to the punishment of millions of officials and revealed major corruption, but some critics have suggested it is also being used to destroy the careers of Xi’s political rivals.