China's uncompromising fight against corruption

The 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), China's top anti-graft body, is meeting for its annual session from Monday to Wednesday to set this year's anti-corruption agenda.

The CPC says in its constitution that the Party must "make comprehensive efforts" to ensure that "the fight against corruption keeps going."

Echoing the words, the Chinese leadership in a recent meeting urged efforts to remain exceptionally clear-headed about the state of the anti-corruption fight, pledging zero tolerance to corruption in any form.

For the people

According to the National Commission of Supervision (NCS), as of last December, China has dealt with 768,000 cases of misconduct and corruption that directly affect people's livelihoods since the 20th National Congress of the CPC in 2022, with a total of 628,000 people involved in these cases punished and 20,000 people transferred to procuratorial organs.

Strong measures have particularly been taken in major fields, such as health, education and rural affairs.

The NCS said that 23,000 individuals have been disciplined after being found to have embezzled funds intended for student meals, interfered in the bidding for and procurement of food, and accepted kickbacks, among other irregularities.

To combat corruption in the management of rural collective funds, assets and resources, the NCS has also guided supervisory and judicial authorities at all levels to investigate 153,000 cases of embezzlement and illegal disposal of collective assets, resulting in the punishment of 132,000 individuals.

The data released by NCS also showed that around 40,000 individuals have faced disciplinary action for medical misconduct, with 2,634 cases that have involved serious violations being transferred to prosecutors for further investigation.

'Taking out the tigers'

"Look at what I have done, I am so ashamed and disgraced," said Tang Yijun, a former senior political advisor in east China's Jiangxi Province, in an anti-graft documentary aired by the China Media Group (CMG) on Sunday.

Tang, former chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), had taken advantage of his power to seek benefits for others in matters such as enterprise operation and listing, job promotion and legal case handling, illegally accepting huge amounts of money and valuables in return. The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) ordered the arrest of Tang for suspected bribe-taking in October 2024.

China's battle against corruption consists of both "swatting the flies" and "taking out the tigers," with "flies" representing low-ranking corrupt officials and "tigers" representing high-ranking ones, like Tang.

Last year, the country netted 58 "tigers," the largest number in the past decade.

Combating bribery

Combating bribery is a major focus of China's anti-corruption campaign. In particular, since the 20th National Congress of the CPC, a series of relevant institutional measures, such as bribery law revisions and coordinated penalty mechanisms, have been further introduced to combat both bribe-taking and bribe-giving.

With the changing of bribe-taking forms, corrupt practices are now much harder to trace. In one case, Fan Yifei, former vice governor of the People's Bank of China, used his brother's investment company to secretly amass wealth. Rather than offering cash, bribe-givers provided fake investment projects, with his brother's company profiting from fraudulent agreements that required no actual money.

In response, the country's anti-corruption agencies have strengthened collaboration with departments of public security, taxation and auditing, leveraging advanced technologies such as big data and cloud computing to uncover deeply entrenched corruption.

Efforts are also intensified to punish those who offer bribes. In the first three quarters of 2024, anti-graft watchdogs investigated 19,000 individuals for offering bribes, with 2,972 transferred to procuratorial organs for further investigation and prosecution, Xinhua reported.

In its ongoing efforts to track down corrupt fugitives, China has also secured the return of 1,306 individuals who had fled abroad and also recovered illicit assets totaling 15.4 billion yuan (about $2.1 billion) between January and November 2024.