Since taking office in 2013, Xi Jinping has been on a mission to root out corruption among the ranks of the Communist Party.
Xi, whose efforts have affected both high-ranking officials and those lower on the totem pole, is keen on re-establishing party discipline. Policies handed down from on high often lose their teeth while filtering down through the sprawling party ranks. As The Atlantic put it last year, Xi wants to correct that by ‘reforming [China’s] very political culture.’
The problem is ‘made more urgent by a slowing economy,’ an economy which desperately needs to be reformed. ‘Reform, however, requires the ability to enact policy,’ The Atlantic flatly adds. ‘That in turn necessitates bureaucrats who follow the central government’s orders.’
Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has ensnared scores of officials from the prominent (the ‘tigers’) to the obscure (the ‘flies’), and as Foreign Policy wrote on Thursday, ‘the CCDI [just] released a communiqu promising to maintain ‘unabated forces and unchanging rhythm’ in pursuing the goal of a China where, as Xi put it, officials are ‘unable and unwilling to engage in corruption.”
Some 1,500 officials have seen their cases publicly announced. All 1,500 are represented in the following excellent interactive graphic from ChinaFile called ‘Catching Tigers and Flies.’
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 01/22/2016.
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