Chinese President Xi Jinping had upon taking office a decade ago vowed to end corruption but now many of its close associates and leaders of China Communist Party (CCP) are facing serious graft charges.
Former vice-justice minister Liu Zhiqiang is the latest addition to the list, who is now subjected to “disciplinary review and supervisory investigation” into a case of corruption.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of corruption cases as a whopping 110,000 CCP officials faced graft allegations in 2023 alone.
It registered a 13 percent increase compared to 2022, according to figures released by Chinese anticorruption agency Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
These figures pick holes in Xi’s claims about the achievement of “an overwhelming victory” of the anti-corruption crackdown.
Xi’s regime has seen narratives being set to show that strict action was taken against the corrupt.
Bo represented the case of massive influence exerted by CCP leaders to accumulate wealth. Notably, the CCP distanced itself away from the Bo’s inquiry.
A documentary named Zero Tolerance was released to show the efforts and success of the anti-graft campaign. However, people did not appear convinced.
“The cost of committing crimes is too low and the attraction too high,” said one Chinese national on social media.
“They don’t look like criminals, they look like losers in a business battle” said David Yao, a Shanghai-based software engineer.
Xi made claims about redistributing wealth but various reports showed how the wealth of his relatives and associates increased substantially in the recent past.
His sister Qi Qiaoqiao made exponential profits thanks to the allotment of the best land parcel in the country to her real estate company.
The names of Xi’s and other top CCP leaders’ family members were cropped up in the Panama Paper scandal.
Xi’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui was linked to offshore deals that hid millions of dollars.
Similarly, a teenage daughter of top CCP politician Jia Qinglin was found to be the sole shareholder in shell companies based in the British Virgin Islands.
“Xi Jinping promotes people who have close relationships with, or show personal loyalty to him tells them otherwise,” said sociologist and economist Shaomin Li.
Other top CCP leaders whose relatives featured in the Panama Paper scandal were Li Peng, Bo Xilai, Zeng Qinghong, Tian Jiyun, and Zhang Gaoli.
Promotions are obtained through secret negotiations and bribes while Xi used his antigraft campaign only to get rid of his political opponents, he said.
Some of them were either former vice presidents or members of the country’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee.
Of them, Bo has already been convicted and imprisoned in cases related to bribery, corruption and power abuses.
Bo represented the case of massive influence exerted by CCP leaders to accumulate wealth. Notably, the CCP distanced itself away from the Bo’s inquiry.
“The danger for them, the Chinese, is that the whole of the Politburo and their Central Committee colleagues will be exposed as a new property-owning class,” said China expert and Harvard professor Roderick MacFarquhar, now dead.
Other big communist leaders from China, whose relatives deposited money in offshore entities to evade tax or scrutiny, are former President Hu Jintao, former Premiers Wen Jiabao, Li Peng, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, former central bank governors Che Feng, Wang Zhi, former vice presidents Wang Jun, Wang Jingjing, and old grand CCP leaders Fu Liang, Yeh Shuen-ji.
China is the second biggest economic power in the world.
Yet it ranked 76th in 2023 on the Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International.
The corruption in the CCP is huge, which undermined the party’s legitimacy and destroyed public trust and morality, said Shaomin Li.
Promotions are obtained through secret negotiations and bribes while Xi used his antigraft campaign only to get rid of his political opponents, he said.
“The Chinese Communist Party is like a mafia organisation, which has unwritten but unequivocal rules about who should get what and how much. If the number two in the party has grabbed noticeably more than the number one, the number two has committed a serious offence and needs to be punished. In a mafia organisation, the hierarchy must be observed and protected at any cost,” Li said.
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