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ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia June 15 [email protected]

Autocrats Untying Their Hands: Political Prosecution of Corruption in a Limited Autocracy

Jia Li, University of Chicago

Abstract

Autocrats have an incentive to purge rival elites in the course of anticorruption. But

can an autocrat purge his rivals by political prosecution in a limited autocracy where

power-sharing arrangements tie his hands? Empirical observation from , an

institutionalized autocracy with a history of politicized anticorruption, sheds light on

this question. ’s anticorruption campaign provides network evidence that the

autocrat is untying his hands and purging rivals despite the constraints on his power.

Studying the network where purged elites are nodes and their colleague relations are ties,

this paper argues that the emphasis on political prosecution against an elite explains his

centrality in the purged network, which suggests that political prosecution drives the

campaign as much as cleansing graft does. The independent variable, emphasis on

political prosecution, is estimated by the ratio of intraparty duration to procuratorial

duration. Centrality, as the dependent variable, is constructed by PageRank algorithm.

The finding suggests that an autocrat in a limited autocracy is capable of reneging on

power sharing.

Keywords: limited autocracy; network analysis; corruption; China

1 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Autocrats with hands tied: can they purge rivals by political prosecution?

Autocrats have an incentive to purge rival elites in the course of anticorruption. As a strategy to enforce political order, they manipulate judicial processes and employ courts to monitor regime elites (Magaloni, 2008b). Cleansing graft is a convenient excuse for purging rivals.

Autocrats use anticorruption agencies as political instruments to repress regime elites (Svensson,

2005). In autocracies, anticorruption is enforced in a highly selective way, based on political considerations as well as economic graft (Manion, 1998). It is a politicized cause that serves to consolidate autocrats’ power.

In limited autocracies, however, the power of autocrats is substantially constrained by power-sharing arrangements. Autocrats rule on the consent of small-sized selectorate (Bueno de

Mesquita, et al., 2003). They have to credibly commit themselves to sharing power in institutions with regime elites in order to build and secure the loyalty of their winning coalitions (Gandhi &

Przeworski, 2007; Magaloni, 2008a; Boix & Svolik, 2013). Institutionalization reduces the risk of coup, but the rule of autocrats remains under threat of allies’ rebellion (Svolik, 2012). Regime elites may challenge autocrats via power-sharing institutions. The power of autocrats in limited autocracies is therefore constrained. It leads us to question to what extent those autocrats can prioritize their personal agenda at the expense of regime elites at large when they wield autocratic power.

Can an autocrat, with his hands tied by power-sharing arrangements in a limited autocracy,

2 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] take advantage of anticorruption and massively purge his rivals? China is an example of institutionalized durable autocracy. This paper provides evidence from Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign that power-sharing arrangements can be fragile. This paper shows that the network structure of purged elites is shaped by political prosecution as much as by the efforts to cleanse graft. It means that the Chinese autocrat is untying his hands and breaking down the established power-sharing deals.

China: anticorruption in a limited autocracy

The regime of the Communist Party of China (CCP1) provides an example of institutionalized and durable autocracy. After , the regime has developed a system of reciprocal accountability: the Central Committee under the command of the Politburo, and the

Politburo in turn held accountable to the Central Committee (Shirk, 1993). Power sharing has been effectively established in the post-Deng China. In the absence of a strongman, arrangements that divide the party-state’s supreme power between standing members of the

Politburo emerge and consolidate. This institutional design of “collective leadership” (jiti lingdao) is the key to China’s developmental miracle (Hu, 2014b). Some scholars go as far as calling it a “collective presidency (jiti zongtong zhi)” (Hu, 2012; 2014a). The party-state delegates power to its bureaucrats in functional and local agencies who enforce policies made by

1 The party uses “CPC” as its official abbreviation, but “CCP” is more commonly used in the English-speaking world. This paper refers the party as “CCP”.

3 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] the party center, and bureaucratic interests significantly dictate policy outcomes (Lieberthal &

Oksenberg, 1988). Moreover, conventions on power transition have emerged and functioned effectively on recent occasions: from to and to (Kou,

2010), and most lately to Xi Jinping. The durability of CCP regime is largely attributed to its power-sharing institutions that alleviate the monitoring problems between autocrats and regime elites (Svolik, 2012). This durability, however, comes with a cost. An autocrat selected by institutionalized rules is fettered thereby, and so he can hardly overturn the regime’s fundamental programs (Kou, 2006; 2010). His personal autocracy is vulnerable to potential challenges by regime elites at large. Power-sharing arrangements tie his hands when he seeks to meet critical challenges in governance – the “tough bones” (Chan, 2014) – and leave a legacy in CCP history

(Zhai, 2014).

Many China watchers expect Xi to try untying his hands and striking down his enemies in an anticorruption campaign (Huang, 2014; Sternberg, 2014; Tiezz, 2014; Wang, 2014). This means that he will effectively break down the power-sharing arrangements. Power sharing, indeed, can be fragile. It frequently fails in the emergence of an established autocracy: if the autocrat is able to repress regime elites in the course of his personalizing power, regime elites may eventually lose their capacity of allies’ rebellion that keeps the autocrat in check (Svolik,

2012). In the case of China, a massive anticorruption campaign can evidence such a process. If we observe a campaign that is structurally driven by political prosecution, we may infer that the

4 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] autocrat is pursuing his own agenda against the will of regime elites at large and thus power sharing is falling apart.

China has a long record of politicized anticorruption. Cleansing graft is never the only rationale behind (Wedeman, 2005). In part, China’s periodic and concerted anticorruption efforts are by-products of its economic policies (Quade, 2007). The “higher” goals of CCP, including state transformation in 1949-1953, regime consolidation in 1954-1966 and national modernization since 1978, fuel its fight against corruption (Gong, 1994). Leaders in communist regimes are well aware that corruption undermines the foundation of their regimes and sometimes take proactive measures (Holmes, 1993). The regimes wage campaigns when they expect to gain incremental legitimacy therefrom (Manion, 2004).

They do not, however, crack down corruption at all cost. In China, CCP omits high-level, high-stakes corruption cases so as to prevent damage to the party’s image (Fabre, 2001).

Punishing senior officials results in a waste of the regime’s human capital investment on those fallen cadres (Zhu, 2015). Besides, corruption enhances CCP’s control over its party apparatuses because graft provides elites with economic compensation (Fan & Grossman, 2001).

Anticorruption is, therefore, a mere “symbolic” issue (Guo, 2014). When the regime does decide to prosecute top leaders for corruption, it is often more about power struggle than cleansing graft per se (Wedeman, 2012). In China, the issue of corruption has turned a weapon against political enemies (Shirk, 1993). For example, ’s downfall is deemed as a result of his

5 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] conspiracy with to challenge Xi’s position (Guo, 2014). In this paper, we go beyond analyzing individual cases and look for evidence at the campaign’s structural level.

Argument: political prosecution and network centrality

The elites prosecuted in an anticorruption campaign can be analyzed in the purged network where each purged elite is a node and their colleague relations are ties. Figure 1 is a sketch that illustrates how such a network may be structured. Some nodes are obviously more central than others in this illustrative network. A number of individual attributes of political elites may account for the varying centrality. First, an elder elite is more likely to occupy a central network position, as an elite with a longer career can form more colleague relations in the course. Second, political mobility of an elite has an impact on his position. If an elite has served in many an institution, he is more likely to be central in the network than someone else who builds the entire career in one single place. Third, political seniority affects centrality. A higher-ranking elite has formed colleague relations at various levels in the political hierarchy of the regime, and so he is expected to occupy a central position.

The network we are interested in is not composed of all elites; rather, it is a purged network.

Some attributes specific to purged elites also explain their centrality. Centrality of an elite in the purged network is about how many colleagues of his are prosecuted and therefore in the purged network. Ties in this purged network are not colleague relations per se: colleague relations are

6 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] mere “trellis” that hold the actually meaningful interrelations between the purged elites.2 This paper is to discover what these meaningful interrelations are.

Figure 1: Illustrative Network The purged network is a subset of the entire elite network. It grows as the anticorruption campaign unfolds, evidence of economic or political corruption emerges that links one elite to others, and thus other elites are put under investigation as well. Structurally, an elite is central in the purged network if his case leads anticorruption agencies to many of his colleagues. For example, if an elite is involved in a large amount of graft in numerous cases, there is a good chance that many of his colleagues collude with him. The more corrupt one elite is, the more evidence of graft should emerge during his investigation, and so the more colleagues in collusion with him will be further inspected. If the campaign aims only at cleansing graft, we should interpret the ties in the purged network as the collusion of economic graft. The centrality of an elite, therefore, is determined by the value of graft in his case.

2 They are “trellis” in a way similar to how Andrew Nathan (1973) theorizes the relationship between formal bureaucracies and factional ties in Chinese politics.

7 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Conversely, as this paper would argue, an elite may be central in the purged network because his investigation emphasizes on political prosecution. If the autocrat deems an elite as a potential threat and intends to unseat him, the autocrat will not prosecute the threatening individual alone but also purge those who are close to him. Anticorruption agencies will find evidence of a clique around the targeted elite. The emphasis on political prosecution against an elite makes him the hub of a clique. If political prosecution structurally drives the anticorruption campaign, the meaningful interrelations underlying the ties should be potential political alliance.

Centrality, in this case, is a product of the emphasis on political prosecution.

IV: Emphasis on political Causal DV: Centrality of an prosecution against an elite mechanism elite in purged network

measured by

Relative duration of Statistical PageRank score of a political prosecution correlation node

Figure 2: Causal Mechanism Figure 2 presents the argument. The emphasis on political prosecution against an elite is the independent variable that causally leads to his centrality in the purged network. Emphasis on political prosecution is estimated by its relative duration, that is, the ratio of intraparty duration to procuratorial duration. This paper uses PageRank to measure centrality.

Network: elites prosecuted for corruption in Xi’s early reign

8 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Purged elites as nodes

This paper studies the network of CCP elites, at or above vice-provincial/ministerial/army level,3 who are prosecuted for corruption during Xi Jinping’s early reign from November 2012 to March 2015. There are 104 elites in the sample, including 72 civilian cadres and 32 military generals (see Appendix and Table 1). The unit of analysis is individual elite.

Table 1: Elites Prosecuted for Corruption in Xi Jinping’s Early Reign Civilian Cadres Rank Level1 FS VS FP VP Total Number of Elites 1 2 7 62 72 Military Generals Rank Level2 VS FMR VMR FA VA Total Number of Elites 1 0 6 10 15 32 Note: Data for civilian cadres from CCDI website at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/, and for military generals from the website of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at http://www.81.cn/. 1. Civilian rank levels: FS: full-state level; VS: vice-state level; FP: full-provincial level; VP: vice-provincial level. 2. Military rank levels: VS: vice-state level; FMR: full-military-regional level; VMR: vice-military-regional level; FA: full-army level; VA: vice-army level. The vice-/full-military-regional levels are considered between the state levels and the provincial levels.

The campaign during Xi’s early reign is impressive because of the number and seniority of the “big tigers” it hunts down. For the first time in CCP history, a retired standing member of the

Politburo, Zhou Yongkang, is put in jail for corruption. Also a first-timer, a retired

Vice-Chairman of Central Military Commission (CMC), Caihou, is hunted down.4 Two incumbent national leaders, both as Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese

3 Provincial level (sheng ji), ministerial level (bu ji) and army level (jun ji) refer to the same rank level in different institutions. “Provincial level” is used in local hierarchies in provinces, provincial-level municipalities or their equivalents. “Ministerial level” applies to positions or cadres in central institutions, e.g. ministries of the State Council, central departments of CCP Central Committee, etc. “Army level” is a rank level in the military. In this paper, we mostly use “provincial level” for short. 4 , the other Vice-Chairman of CMC during Hu Jintao’s reign, was investigated for corruption in April 2015. He is the second vice-state-level military leader who ever falls down due to corruption in CCP history.

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People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), are prosecuted.

March 2015 marks the end of Xi’s early reign for three reasons. First, by that time Xi had assumed offices of all major positions that grant him the autocratic power. He was elected the

General Secretary of CCP and the Chairman of CMC in November 2012, became the President of the People’s Republic of China in March 2013, found and chaired the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform and the National Security Commission in January 2014, and found and chaired the CMC Leading Group for Deepening National Defense and Military

Reform in March 2014. The general secretaryship of the party, the chairmanship of the military and the presidency of the state compose the trinity of supreme power in post-Deng China, and the three newly founded coordinating institutions are critical to the expansion of Xi’s power beyond his two predecessors.

Second, Xi proclaimed his pivotal programs, the “Four Comprehensives”, in February 2015

(“Renmin ribao”, 2015). Those programs include: to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society; to comprehensively deepen reform; to comprehensively govern the nation according to law; and to comprehensively strictly govern the party. In February 2015, the four programs were fabricated to form an organic whole that pointed to the direction of Xi’s “Chinese

Dream”. They set the tone for the subsequent national “”, the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of CPPCC, in the following March.

Third, and most significantly, March 2015 witnesses the first national Two Sessions after Xi

10 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] had assumed all his significant offices and proclaimed his pivotal programs. People’s Congress and CPPCC are the legislative and political advisory institutions. Constitutionally, the National

People’s Congress is the supreme power organ in the People’s Republic of China, and all executive, judicial, procuratorial and military branches are ultimately accountable to the National

People’s Congress. CPPCC, on the other hand, serves as the United-Front council that coopts elites from satellite parties and a wide range of social strata. It makes political sense to set the end time of Xi’s early reign on a national Two Sessions.

Colleague relations as ties

We code each and every political position that an elite has held in his career. For each position, we code both its vertical and horizontal affiliation and its start and end time. We then construct a matrix form where every prosecuted elite occupies a column and a row. Each cell in this 104×104 matrix denotes whether the column elite and the row elite have any colleague relation. It is a dummy variable, with 1 denoting the existence of colleague relation – and thus a tie in the purged network – and 0 for nonexistence.

A colleague relation is coded if two elites have worked in the same institution at the same time (see Figure 3). They are considered colleagues only if they work in the same unit on the lowest shared rank level and their full rank levels are the same or next to each other. For example, a vice provincial governor and a municipal party chief in that province can be colleagues. On the

11 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] other hand, a minister cannot have colleague relation with someone lower than a departmental vice-director in his ministry.

Provincial Party Chief Provincial Deputy Party Chief

Mayor

Vice-Mayor

Director of Department X Deputy Director of Department X Municipality A Municipality B

Figure 3: Coding of Ties Note: Reprinted from “Xi Jinping’s Tiger Hunt: Fighting Corruption or Fighting Enemies?” by J. Li, 2014, paper presented at Annual Conference of Chinese Association of Political Science, Taipei, Taiwan (ROC).

The purged network

With the nodes and ties coded as above, we apply the Fruchterman-Reingold algorithm for a force-directed layout (Fruchterman & Reingold, 1991) in R to transform the cadres and their colleague relations into a sociogram (see Figure 4). The purged network includes 18 isolated nodes, 4 isolated dyads, and 78 interrelated nodes that form the major component.

The size of each node signifies the elite’s rank level: the higher-ranking an elite, the larger his node. The only full-state-level elite, Zhou Yongkang, is positioned in the center of the major component. He took charge of law enforcement from 2007 to 2012 when he was a standing member of the Politburo. In this network, he has ties with his subordinate cadres from China

National Petroleum Corporation, Province, Ministry of Public Security, Politics and

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Law Commission, among others.

Li_Daqiu Zhang_Dongshui● Chen_Qiang ● Fan_Changmi● Liao_Shaohua Yu_Daqing● Zhang_Qibin● Wang_Aiguo ● Wang_Minggui

Chen_Jianfeng● Liu_Zheng Xu_Caihou ● Zhang_Daixin● Yang_Jinshan ● ● Zhu_Heping ● Lan_Weijie Wei_Jin Fu_Linguo● ●

Yang_Baohua Fu_Xiaoguang● Sui_Fengfu● Liu_Hongjie ● Ye_Wanyong● Han_Xuejian● Zhang_Gongxian Gao_Xiaoyan●

Chen_Tiexin Yi_Junqing● Yuan_Shijun● Guo_Yongxiang● Li_Chuncheng Tan_Li● Han_Xiancong● ● Guo_Youming● Li_Chongxi Chen_Baihuai● Dai_Weimin Li_Zhi● ● Ni_Fake● Wu_Yongwen● Duan_Tianjie Ji_Wenlin● Tong_Mingqian Yang_Gang ● ● Qin_Yuhai ● Zhu_Mingguo Tan_Qiwei● Zhou_Yongkang Ma_Xiangdong Cai_Guangliao● ● Ling_Zhengce Huang_Xianjun● ● ● Wan_Qingliang He_Jiacheng Wang_Jianping ● Jin_Daoming● Li_Dongsheng Wu_Changshun● Wang_Shuaiting● Fang_WenpingChen_ChuanpingBai_Yun● ● ● ● ● ● Huang_Xing Du_Shanxue● Nie_Chunyu● Wang_Min Ling_Jihua Zhao_Liping ● Song_Lin● Ren_Runhou● Liang_BinShen_Weichen● ● ● ● Cheng_Jie Chen_Anzhong●

Jing_Chunhua● Wang_Suyi● Ma_Jian Sun_Zhaoxue Pan_Yiyang ● Zhang_Tianxin● ●

Bai_Enpei Jiang_Jiemin Zhao_Zhiyong● Chen_Hongyan ● ● Lu_Wucheng Fu_Yi● Su_Rong● ● Xu_Aimin● Wang_Sheng Guo_Zhenggang● Shen_Peiping● Mao_Xiaobing● Yao_Mugen●

Qiu_He Liao_Yongyuan ● ● Si_Xinliang Liu_Tienan● Zhu_Zuoli● Wang_Yongchun● Sun_Hongzhi● Zhao_Shaolin● Xu_Jianyi Yang_Weize● Ji_Jianye●

Xu_Gang

Figure 4: Network of Purged Elites in Xi’s Early Reign Note: Data for nodes from CCDI website at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/ and PLA website at http://www.81.cn/, and for ties from “Chinese Political Elites Database” at http://cped.nccu.edu.tw and “Leading Cadres of CPC and Chinese Government Database” at http://cpc.people.com.cn/gbzl/index.html.

There are three vice-state-level elites in the network. was a Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of CPPCC and a former top aide of Hu Jintao. He was the Director of the General Office of CCP, a position that makes him a broker between numerous nodes. Xu

Caihou, a Vice-Chairman of CMC between 2002 and 2012, is relatively peripheral in the network because he has few colleague relations with civilian cadres. Rong, another

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Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of CPPCC, is tied with cadres who are mostly his former subordinates in Province. All the four national leaders are marked in brackets.

The Clique marked in a dotted-line circle is the only clique5 of more than three nodes. Those ten prosecuted elites are all colleagues in the standing committee or government of Shanxi Province, which connects each pair of them.

Research design

Dependent variable: centrality

The dependent variable is centrality, a measurement of a node’s position relative to others in network. Literature of social network analysis provides various measurements to quantify different characteristics of nodes. John Padgett and Christopher Ansell (1993) attribute the rise of

Medici family in medieval Florence to their unique position of structural hole between the old and new prominent families in the city-state. Padgett (2012) also studies China’s economic reform under Deng Xiaoping and suggests that Deng’s brokerage position, which connects him with the elders, military elites and reformist faction, facilitates his success.

Besides brokerage, centrality provides a classical perspective of measuring the importance of a node. People in central positions in network have better opportunities to access and spread information (de Nooy, Mrvar & Batagelj, 2005). Three basic structural attributes indicate

5 In graph theory, “clique” refers to a maximal complete subnetwork containing at least three nodes and every two of them are connected. It has the maximal density that any two of the nodes that are possible to be connected are connected. For a detailed explanation of concepts like component, clique, faction, density and others, see Chapter 3 in de Nooy, Mrvar & Batagelj (2005) and Chapter 11 in Borgatti, Everett & Johnson (2013).

14 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] centrality in different ways. First, studies of communication activity prefer degree centrality that counts the number of ties incident with a node. Second, studies concerning control of communication require betweenness centrality, that is, the number of shortest paths from all nodes to all others that pass through a given node. Third, studies that focus on independence suggest closeness centrality, the inverse of the sum of distances between one node and all others

(Freeman, 1979).

This paper uses PageRank, an eigenvector centrality that measures both quantity and quality of a node’s ties. Google develops the algorithm to rank web pages (Brin & Page, 1998):

��! ��! = 1 − � + � �! !

In the algorithm, PR! is the PageRank score of node i, the one we are interested in. j stands for all nodes with ties to node i, and C! is the number of ties of node j. We usually set the damping factor, d, at 0.85 (Brin & Page, 1998). In this paper, PageRank measures the relative importance of an elite in the purged network. If an elite scores high in PageRank, it suggests that he occupies a central position among all prosecuted elites.

We expect the centrality distribution to be right-skewed since most elites are not densely connected to others and only a few are well connected in the purged network. So we perform logarithmic transformation on PageRank scores in the models so as to make the skewed distribution proximate to normal.

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Independent variable: political prosecution

We take advantage of the two-stage prosecution procedure in China (see Figure 5) to estimate the emphasis on political prosecution in a case. The first stage is intraparty inspection.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the principal intraparty anticorruption agency (Guo, 2014), initiates preliminary inspection against a cadre and decides whether to go into formal disciplinary inspection. It then takes a varying period of time for CCDI to conclude party sanction.6 For years, the intraparty inspection and its opaque and coercionary

“double designated” (shuanggui7) have earned a forbidding reputation of brutal torture and suspects often end up with forced confession (Human Rights Watch, 2016). The second stage is procuratorial investigation. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) investigates into the cases of senior CCP cadres and files complaints of prosecution with designated provincial courts. The cases are then heard and cadres sentenced.

6 For a more detailed description of CCDI’s inspection procedure, see Guo (2014). 7 “”, in its literal meaning, refers to the directive that a party member “be present at a designated time and designated location” in order to comply with disciplinary inspection (CCDI, 1994, Article 28 Section 3).

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Two-stage prosecution

2. Announcement 1. Preliminary of disciplinary inspection inspection 8. Sentence

6. Prosecution 3. Dismissal from by filing a 7. Trial office complaint

4. Conclusion 5. Prosecurate of disciplinary opens sanction investigation

Intraparty Procuratorial Judicial inspection investigation proceeding Figure 5: Intraparty Inspection and Procuratorial Investigation Among the 104 purged elites in Xi’s early reign, we are able to retrieve complete data of 57 cases. The dates of case proceeding of these cadres are publicly available, either covered in news reports or publicized by party or state agencies. In the intraparty stage from putting an elite under disciplinary inspection to concluding the party sanction, CCDI spends 181.79 days on average.

The maximal record, 512 days, belongs to , the chairman of board and party chief of a

Hong Kong-based state-owned enterprise. In contrast, it takes CCDI only 50 days to conclude inspection on Baohua, a Vice-Chairman of Hunan Provincial CPPCC, which sets the minimal record. In the procuratorial stage from opening criminal investigation to filing a complaint of prosecution, the average duration is 355.63 days. Chuanping, the Party Chief of Municipality in Shanxi Province, holds the maximal record of 579 days. The famous

Zhou Yongkang case sets the minimal record at 118 days.

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600

500

400

300

200 Intraparty Duration (Days)

100

0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Procuratorial Duration (Days)

Figure 6: Correlation between Intraparty Duration and Procuratorial Duration Note: Data for intraparty duration from CCDI website at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/, and for procuratorial duration from SPP reports at http://www.spp.gov.cn/qwfb/ and other media resources.

It is reasonable to expect that the more complicated or severe a case is, the longer it should take both party and state agencies to investigate into it. Therefore, the intraparty duration and procuratorial duration should be highly correlated in a positive way. Counter-intuitively, though, they are not. Figure 6 presents the intraparty duration versus procuratorial duration of the 57 cases. The Pearson’s r is only 0.036, indicating a very weak correlation.

The puzzling weak correlation results from the difference of substance under investigation in the two stages (see Table 2). CCDI performs political prosecution as well as inspection on economic graft. In contrast, the procuratorate is only concerned with offenses of state law and,

18 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] with few exception, elites are prosecuted for economic graft only. Although the procuratorate often relies on the evidence and confession obtained in the previous intraparty stage, it has to go all the way through formal procedures to verify and, if necessary, re-investigate into the facts of economic graft that have been established by intraparty agencies.

Table 2: Different Substance under Investigation in the Two Stages

Economic Graft Political Prosecution First Stage: - Taking, seeking or offering - Forming cliques within the party; Intraparty bribe; - Inappropriate open discussion of Inspection - Accepting huge amount of gift party policy; by oneself or family; - Violation of political practices and - Embezzlement; political disciplines; - Taking advantage of public - Disloyalty and dishonesty to the office; etc. party; etc. Second Stage: - Accepting and offering bribe; Procuratorial - Embezzlement; Investigation - Huge property without identified sources; etc. Note: Data for intraparty inspection from CCDI notices and reports at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/, and for procuratorial investigation from SPP reports at http://www.spp.gov.cn/qwfb/ and other media resources.

This difference of substance allows us to estimate the emphasis on political prosecution.

Intraparty duration is a function of both effort of political prosecution and value of economic graft, whereas procuratorial duration is only related to economic graft. The independent variable, relative duration of political prosecution, is thus estimated by: d ���� = !"#$ d!"#$

In this equation, ���� is the relative duration of political prosecution, d!"#$ refers to the intraparty duration and d!"#$ is the procuratorial duration. Both durations are measured in day.

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The more emphasis put on political prosecution against an elite, the larger the ratio. We can show the validity of this estimation by the following proof. Let us suppose that α is an institutional coefficient that measures the efficiency of intraparty inspection on economic graft, β is an institutional coefficient that measures the efficiency of intraparty inspection on political prosecution, and λ is an institutional coefficient that measures the efficiency of procuratorial investigation into economic graft. Let x be the value of economic graft and y be the emphasis on political prosecution. We have: d �� + �� � � � ���� = !"#$ = = + × d!"#$ �� � � � Since all cases in our sample are handled by CCDI and under SPP’s direction, the three institutional coefficients, α, β and λ, are constant in all cases. Therefore, !, the emphasis on ! political prosecution divided by the value of graft, is the only moving part that accounts for the variation in ����. We can thus conclude that this variable of political prosecution is a valid estimator of relative emphasis on political prosecution against an elite.

Control variables

1) Graft

We measure economic graft by the monetary value of bribe and embezzlement (million

Chinese Yuan, RMB). If anticorruption agencies only focus on cleansing graft, this variable should have a larger effect on centrality than political prosecution has.

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The distribution of graft is right-skewed. The mean value of economic graft of all purged elites is significantly larger than the median value because of several cases of exceptionally huge amount of economic corruption. So we log this variable in the models in order to normalize its distribution.

2) Career length

A cadre with a longer career is likely to have more colleague relations in network. We measure career length by the number of years of an elite’s public service, from the year he starts working to the year he is put under disciplinary inspection.

3) Mobility

A mobile career means that an elite has served in numerous institutions, which increases the chance of him being a colleague with more other elites. We measure mobility by the number of institutions where an elite has worked. We count institutions at or above vice-provincial level, such as provinces or provincial-level municipalities, central ministries of the State Council, central departments of CCP Central Committee, etc.

4) Political seniority

A high-ranking elite has formed colleague relations at various administrative levels and is thus expected to be central in network. In the models, political seniority is a categorical variable with three values: state level, full-provincial level and vice-provincial level.

21 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Data

We compile the list of prosecuted elites with information from CCP official media. CCDI puts online its case notices and reports starting from December 2012.8 We compile the list of civilian prosecuted elites with data retrieved there. The disciplinary actions against military generals are released at the official PLA website9 from time to time. The list of prosecuted military elites is compiled based on news reports retrieved there.

To estimate centrality, this paper collects information of colleague relations from the

“Chinese Political Elites Database” constructed by Chien-wen Kou at National Chengchi

University in Taiwan10 and the “Leading Cadres of CPC and Chinese Government Database” constructed by the official news website of CCP.11 Both databases hold resumes that, in most cases, include complete career information of senior CCP cadres. We also retrieve information of career length, mobility and political seniority of purged elites from those databases.

For the variable of political prosecution, this paper relies primarily on public notices that

CCDI and SPP issue. The data of intraparty duration are compiled from CCDI reports.12 For procuratorate duration, we retrieve information from the SPP website13 and a variety of official

8 See “Jilv Shencha (紀律審查, Disciplinary Inspection)” from Zhongyang jiwei jianchabu wangzhan (中央紀委監察部網站, the website of CCDI/Ministry of Supervision), at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/ 9 See Zhongguo junwang (中國軍網, the website of PLA), at http://www.81.cn/ 10 See “Zhonggong zhengzhi jingying ziliaoku (中共政治菁英資料庫, Chinese Political Elites Database)”, at http://cped.nccu.edu.tw 11 See “Zhongguo dangzheng lingdao ganbu ziliaoku (中國黨政領導幹部資料庫, Leading Cadres of CPC and Chinese Government Database)” constructed by Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen wang (中國共產黨新聞網, CPC News.cn), at http://cpc.people.com.cn/gbzl/index.html 12 See “Jilv Shencha (紀律審查, Disciplinary Inspection)” from Zhongyang jiwei jianchabu wangzhan (中央紀委監察部網站, the website of CCDI/Ministry of Supervision), at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/ 13 See “Quanwei Fabu (權威發布, Official Announcements)” from the website of Zuigao Renmin Jianchayuan (最高人民檢察 院網站, SPP website), at http://www.spp.gov.cn/qwfb/

22 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] media of CCP and state agencies.

Value of graft is learned from procuratorate complaints and court judgments collected in the same way as for procuratorate duration.

Results and discussion

Table 3 shows descriptive statistics. PageRank measures the network centrality of purged

CCP cadres, which refers to their connectedness to each other in the purged network. Zhou

Yongkang scores the highest PageRank at 0.0373. As a seasoned politician who retires as a national leader after working in a wide range of party and state institutions, his outstanding importance in the purged network is expected. In contrast, there are 7 purged cadres who do not share a colleague relation with anyone else in the purged network and thus score 0 in PageRank.

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics

Min Civilian MaxCadres Mean Median SD Centrality 0 0.0373 0.0104 0.0091 0.0075 (PageRank) Career Length 25 49 38.44 40 5.74 (years of service) Mobility 1 10 3.86 4 2.00 (number of institutions) Political Seniority 1 3 1.23 1 0.54 (rank level) Graft 0.91 537.97 54.18 20.86 86.58 (million RMB) Political Prosecution 0.14 1.58 0.55 0.44 0.36 (relative duration) N=57 Note: Political seniority: 1=vice-provincial level; 2=full-provincial level; 3=state level.

23 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

The 57 purged cadres generally started their careers in late 1970s, and so the mean value of career length is 38.44 years. Their careers are mobile, as they have worked in 3.86 provinces or ministries on average. Most of the purged cadres are at vice-provincial levels with the exceptions of 3 national leaders and 7 full-provincial level cadres.

The distribution of the monetary value of their graft is highly right-skewed. The charges against their economic corruption include bribery, embezzlement, possession of huge amount of properties without identified sources, etc. The cadre who commits the least graft is Chen

Chuanping, who takes bribes worth 910 thousand RMB. In addition to bribery and embezzlement, nonetheless, Chen as the Party Chief of Taiyuan Municipality also causes more than 900 million RMB loss of national assets by his abuse of power. There are 8 cadres whose bribery and embezzlement is worth more than 100 million RMB, 2 cadres more than 200 million, and 1 cadre more than 500 million. This “champion of graft” is , a

Vice-Chairman of Municipal CPPCC and the Director of Municipal Department of

Public Security. Wu has once worked under Zhou Yongkang.

The mean ratio of intraparty duration to procuratorial duration is 0.55, which suggests that the time that CCDI spends on disciplinary inspection of a case is on average about a half of what the procuratorate spends on legal investigation. The least ratio is 0.14 recorded in the case of

Liang Bin, the Director of Provincial Organization Department. CCDI announces Liang’s party sanction 67 days after putting him under inspection, and then it takes the procuratorate 465

24 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] days to file his prosecution. sets the largest ratio at 1.58. As a Deputy Party Chief of Sichuan Province and an alternative member of CCP Central Committee, Li is the very first

“tiger” hunted down after Xi took power in November 2012. He waits as long as 509 days for his disciplinary sanction from CCDI and another 323 days for his case to be prosecuted.

0.04 0.04 0.04

0.035 0.035 0.035

0.03 0.03 0.03

0.025 0.025 0.025

0.02 0.02 0.02

0.015 0.015 0.015

0.01 0.01 0.01 Centrality (Page Rank) (Page Centrality

0.005 0.005 0.005

0 0 0 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 2 4 6 8 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Career Length Mobility Political Seniority

0.04 0.04

0.035 0.035

0.03 0.03

0.025 0.025

0.02 0.02

0.015 0.015

0.01 0.01 Centrality (Page Rank) (Page Centrality 0.005 0.005 0 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 0 (0.50) 0.50 1.50 2.50 3.50 4.50 5.50 6.50 Political Prosecution (Relative Graft: Log(Million RMB) Duration)

Figure 7: Centrality vs. Career Length, Mobility, Political Seniority, Graft and Political Prosecution Note: Pearson’s r with centrality: career length=0.077; mobility=0.332; political seniority=0.739; log(graft)=0.352; political prosecution=0.236. Political seniority is recoded into 6 values in Figure 7: 1=vice-provincial level; 2=vice-provincial level with alternative membership in the Central Committee; 3=full-provincial level; 4=full-provincial level with membership in the Central Committee or CCDI; 5=vice-state level; 6=full-state level.

Figure 7 presents the correlation between centrality and other variables. Most independent and control variables are not highly correlated with centrality. The number of years of a cadre’s

25 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] public service is the least correlated with his PageRank score in the purged network, with the

Pearson’s r less than 0.1. None of political mobility, logged value of graft and relative duration of political prosecution is a good predictor of PageRank either.

Political seniority appears to be the sole exception. In the correlation analysis, rank level is recoded into 6 values. Some vice-provincial-level cadres are more powerful than others because they sit in the Central Committee as alternative members; they are coded with a separate rank level. Similarly, those full-provincial-level cadres with any membership in either the Central

Committee or CCDI are distinguished from others without. The three national leaders are recoded into two groups: full-state level and vice-state level. Zhou Yongkang is the only observation in the former, whereas and Ling Jihua are the two in the latter category.

As Figure 7 shows, there is a clear positive correlation of seniority and centrality. The

Pearson’s r between the rank level of a prosecuted cadre and his PageRank is 0.739, indicating a high correlation. Zhou Yongkang, the most senior tiger caught in Xi’s anticorruption campaign, is the most central cadre in the purged network. The two vice-state-level leaders, Ling Jihua and

Su Rong, score the second and third highest PageRank. Vice-provincial-level cadres without

Central Committee membership, in contrast, are clustered in the bottom of centrality ranking.

We put the variables into four linear models. The dependent variable is an elite’s centrality in the purged network. The independent variable of interest is political prosecution. It measures the emphasis on political prosecution against an elite. We use the variable of graft to control the

26 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] monetary value of bribe and embezzlement. This variable provides the main competing explanation that we consider in this paper. Other control variables include career length, political mobility and political seniority. The length of an elite’s public service tells us how many years an elite has worked. Mobility is the number of party or state institutions where an elite has served.

Lastly, we use political seniority to indicate the peak of an elite’s administrative rank level. Base

Model only includes control variables of career length, mobility and political seniority. The other three are prosecution models. Graft Model and Political Model take in graft and political prosecution, respectively, in addition to the three control variables. Full Model is the full model that has all the five independent and control variables.

Table 4: Graft and Political Prosecution Upon Centrality

Dependent Variable: Base Model Graft Model Political Model Full Model Log(Centrality) Civilian Cadres Career Length: −0.005 −0.004 −0.005 −0.004 years of service (0.013) (0.013) (0.013) (0.013) Mobility: −0.014 −0.012 −0.014 −0.013 number of institutions (0.041) (0.041) (0.041) (0.042) Political Seniority Full-Provincial Level 0.469** 0.444* 0.457** 0.429* (0.219) (0.226) (0.225) (0.233) State Level 1.318*** 1.258*** 1.307*** 1.242*** (0.321) (0.345) (0.327) (0.352) Log(Graft): 0.030 0.032 million RMB (0.059) (0.060) Political Prosecution 0.054 0.063 relative duration (0.191) (0.194) Observations 50 50 50 50 R-squared 0.330 0.334 0.331 0.335 *significant at 10%; **significant at 5%; ***significant at 1%

27 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

It is to be noted that testing statistical significance does not provide much analytical leverage in this research. The dependent variable, centrality, is a network attribute derived from the interrelations of nodes, and so its value is not independent and identically distributed.

Therefore, the test for statistical significance, which is based on the assumption that the random variables are independent and identically distributed, cannot be used in this research. What we are interested in, instead, is the direction of coefficients of graft and political prosecution in Graft

Model and Political Model, and the comparison of their effects on centrality in Full Model. In all the four models, the values of centrality and graft are logged in order to normalize their right-skewed distributions.

Table 4 presents the results. In the Base Model, we only use career length, mobility and political seniority to predict centrality. As discussed previously, the longer an elite has worked, the more institutions he has worked in, and the higher-ranking he is, the more central he is expected to be in network. These variables should have positive effects on centrality. However, neither career length nor mobility positively affects centrality. The only variable that falls in line with our expectation is political seniority. It is also the only variable with statistically significant effects. In all the four models, both dummies of full-provincial level and state level are positively correlated with PageRank. For example, in Full Model, a state-level leader and a full-provincial-level cadre, ceteris paribus, respectively scores 246.3% and 53.6% more in

PageRank than a cadre at vice-provincial level. The incremental advancement from provincial

28 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] level to state level has an even larger effect on centrality than the advancement from vice-provincial level to full-provincial level.

We have three prosecution models to examine the effects of different investigation emphasis. Graft Model includes graft, Political Model includes political prosecution, and Full

Model includes both. Full Model allows us to compare the effects of graft and political prosecution on centrality. If investigation focuses on economic graft, it will trace from an elite to his colleagues by the collusion of economic graft, and thus the variable of graft should have a larger effect than political prosecution. If the anticorruption agencies emphasize on political threat of an elite to the autocrat, the network should grow from this elite to his colleagues following relations of political alliance. Therefore, the variable of political prosecution will have a larger effect on centrality than graft does.

As Table 4 shows, the effects on centrality of the two variables of interest, graft and political prosecution, are both positive as expected. In Graft Model, every 10% increase of graft leads to a 0.29% increase of centrality. In Political Model, every one-tenth-unit increase of political prosecution results in 0.54% increase of centrality. At the mean value of political prosecution, a 10% increase makes centrality increase by 0.30%. In Full Model, both variables are positively correlated with centrality too. An increase of graft by 10% is expected to bring

0.31% increase of PageRank. A one-tenth-unit increase of political prosecution expectedly leads to a 0.63% increase of PageRank. When political prosecution is at its mean value at 0.55, a 10%

29 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] increase of relative duration makes centrality increase by 0.35%. In Full Model, therefore, we can conclude that the effect of political prosecution on centrality is no less, if not larger, than that of economic graft.

To sum up the empirical results, political seniority is the only variable with a statistically significant positive effect on centrality. The state-level leaders and full-provincial-level cadres are more central in the purged network than vice-provincial-level cadres in all models. As for the variables of interest, both graft and political prosecution are positively correlated with centrality in prosecution models. In Full Model that includes all independent and control variables, the positive effect of political prosecution on centrality is as much as that of the monetary value of bribe and embezzlement.

Conclusion and limitations

This paper finds that political prosecution drives Xi Jinping’s anticorruption campaign as much as cleansing corruption does. The two-stage prosecution procedure in China provides us with the analytical leverage to measure the varying emphasis on political prosecution across corruption cases. We measure political prosecution by relative duration, i.e. the duration ratio of intraparty inspection to procuratorial investigation. The “tigers” hunted down in Xi’s early reign are analyzed in the network of purged elites, where colleague relations are ties that connect prosecuted cadres as nodes. We use the network attribute of centrality to observe the general

30 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] structure of Xi’s campaign. Empirical results show that political prosecution explains network positions of purged elites as much as the magnitude of their economic graft does.

These findings suggest that the Chinese autocrat is indeed breaking down the institutional constraints on his power and taking advantage of anticorruption to unseat his rivals. Contrary to the prediction of some literature on limited autocracy, even in a highly institutionalized authoritarian regime like CCP, an autocrat can still prioritize his personal agenda when he wields the power of the party-state. Committed power-sharing arrangements, the alleged key to political survival of autocrats and autocracies, are in fact fragile.

This study has two notable limitations. First, it only reveals the positioning mechanisms that determine the network positions of elites in the purged network. It does not discuss why these elites are purged in the first place, which may bear equal theoretical and empirical importance for our understanding of anticorruption in autocracies. Future studies can construct a network of all relevant elites and explain the purging mechanisms that decide which elites are picked by the autocrat to prosecute.

Second, this study uses cross-section data that cut in March 2015. This choice of empirical strategy is based on the assumption that March 2015, the end time of Xi’s early reign, concludes a distinct stage of his anticorruption campaign. Much as this assumption makes good political sense, it may be relaxed in future research to extend the time scope. Moreover, time-series data can be used in order to capture the temporal dynamics of Xi’s anticorruption campaign.

31 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

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Appendix: Cadres Prosecuted for Corruption in Xi Jinping’s Early Reign

Pinyin Name Last Institution of Service Rank Date 1 Li Chuncheng 李春城 Sichuan Province VP (AM) 2012/12/5 2 Wu Yongwen 吳永文 Province VP 2013/1/5 3 衣俊卿 Central Compilation and VP 2013/1/17 Translation Bureau 4 劉鐵男 National Development and VP 2013/5/12 Reform Commission 5 倪發科 Province VP 2013/6/4 6 郭永祥 Sichuan Province VP 2013/6/23 7 Wang Suyi 王素毅 Autonomous VP 2013/6/30 Region 8 Li Daqiu 李達球 Zhuang Autonomous VP 2013/7/6 Region 9 Wang 王永春 China National Petroleum VP (AM) 2013/8/26 Yongchun Corporation 10 蔣潔敏 State-owned Assets Supervision FP (FM) 2013/9/1 and Administration Commission 11 季建業 Province VP 2013/10/17 12 廖少華 Guizhou Province VP 2013/10/28 13 王明貴 PLA General Staff Department VA 2013/11 14 Chen Baihuai 陳柏槐 Hubei Province VP 2013/11/19 15 Guo Youming 郭有明 Hubei Province VP 2013/11/27 16 Chen Anzhong 陳安眾 Jiangxi Province VP 2013/12/6 17 Fu Xiaoguang 付曉光 Province VP 2013/12/17 18 Tong Mingqian 童名謙 Hunan Province VP 2013/12/18 19 李東生 Ministry of Public Security FP (FM) 2013/12/20 20 Yang Gang 楊剛 General Administration of VP 2013/12/27 Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine 21 Li Chongxi 李崇禧 Sichuan Province FP 2013/12/29 22 冀文林 Province VP 2014/2/18 23 Zhu Zuoli 祝作利 Province VP 2014/2/19 24 Jin Daoming 金道銘 Shanxi Province VP 2014/2/27 25 Fang Wenping 方文平 PLA Shaanxi Provincial Military FA 2014/3 District

39 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Pinyin Name Last Institution of Service Rank Date 26 Shen Peiping 沈培平 Province VP 2014/3/9 27 徐才厚 Central Military Commission VS 2014/3/15 28 Yao Mugen 姚木根 Jiangxi Province VP 2014/3/22 29 衛晉 PLA Military District FA 2014/4 30 申維辰 Chinese Associations for FP (DM) 2014/4/12 Science and Technology 31 Song Lin 宋林 China Resources (Holdings) VP 2014/4/17 Company Limited 32 毛小兵 Province VP 2014/4/25 33 陳強 PLA Second Artillery Force VA 2014/5 34 Ye Wanyong 葉萬勇 PLA Sichuan Provincial Military FA 2014/5 District 35 Fu Linguo 符林國 PLA General Logistics VA 2014/5 Department 36 Tan Qiwei 譚棲偉 Municipality VP 2014/5/3 37 Wang Shuaiting 王帥廷 China National Travel Service VP 2014/5/16 (HK) Group Corporation 38 陽寶華 Hunan Province VP 2014/5/26 39 Zhiyong 趙智勇 Jiangxi Province VP 2014/6/3 40 Su Rong 蘇榮 National Committee of the VS 2014/6/14 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference 41 杜善學 Shanxi Province VP 2014/6/19 42 令政策 Shanxi Province VP 2014/6/19 43 Qingliang 萬慶良 Province VP (AM) 2014/6/27 44 楊金山 PLA Military Region VMR 2014/7 (FM) 45 Zhang Gongxian 張貢獻 PLA VMR 2014/7 46 譚力 Hainan Province VP 2014/7/8 47 張田欣 Yunnan Province VP 2014/7/12 48 Han Xiancong 韓先聰 Anhui Province VP 2014/7/12 49 Wu Changshun 武長順 Tianjin Municipality VP 2014/7/20 50 Chen Tiexin 陳鐵新 Province VP 2014/7/24 51 Zhou Yongkang 周永康 Standing Committee of FS 2014/7/29 Politburo; Central Politics and Law Commission 52 Zhang Qibin 張祁斌 PLA Jinan Military Region FA 2014/8 53 Zhu Heping 朱和平 PLA FA 2014/8

40 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Pinyin Name Last Institution of Service Rank Date 54 陳川平 Shanxi Province VP (AM) 2014/8/23 55 Nie Chunyu 聶春玉 Shanxi Province VP 2014/8/23 56 白雲 Shanxi Province VP 2014/8/29 57 白恩培 Yunnan Province FP 2014/8/29 58 Ren Runhou 任潤厚 Shanxi Province VP 2014/8/29 59 孫兆學 Aluminum Corporation of China VP 2014/9/15 60 Pan Yiyang 潘逸陽 Inner Mongolia Autonomous VP (AM) 2014/9/17 Region 61 Qin Yuhai 秦玉海 Henan Province VP 2014/9/22 62 Cai Guangliao 蔡廣遼 Guangdong Province VP 2014/10 63 Yuan Shijun 苑世軍 PLA Hubei Provincial Military FA 2014/10 District 64 何家成 Chinese Academy of FP 2014/10/11 Governance 65 Zhao Shaolin 趙少麟 Jiangsu Province VP 2014/10/11 66 劉錚 PLA General Logistics VMR 2014/11 Department 67 Dai Weimin 戴維民 PLA General Political VA 2014/11 Department 68 高小燕 PLA General Staff Department VA 2014/11 69 Wang Aiguo 王愛國 PLA Shenyang Military Region FA 2014/11 70 Huang Xianjun 黃獻軍 PLA Shanxi Provincial Military VA 2014/11 District 71 Duan Tianjie 段天杰 PLA National Defense FA 2014/11 University 72 Liang Bin 梁濱 Hebei Province VP (DM) 2014/11/20 73 隋鳳富 Heilongjiang Province VP 2014/11/27 74 Zhu Mingguo 朱明國 Guangdong Province FP (AM) 2014/11/28 75 Ma Xiangdong 馬向東 PLA General Political VA 2014/12 Department 76 Zhang Daixin 張代新 PLA Heilongjiang Provincial VA 2014/12 Military District 77 Fang Changmi 范長秘 PLA Military Region VMR 2014/12 (AM) 78 Yu Daqing 于大清 PLA Second Artillery Force VMR 2014/12 79 Wang Min 王敏 Province VP (AM) 2014/12/19 80 Han Xuejian 韓學鍵 Heilongjiang Province VP 2014/12/22 81 Ling Jihua 令計劃 National Committee of the VS (FM) 2014/12/22

41 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected]

Pinyin Name Last Institution of Service Rank Date Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; United Front Department of the Central Committee 82 Sun Hongzhi 孫鴻志 State Administration for VP 2014/12/26 Industry and Commerce 83 Huang Xing 黃星 PLA Academy of Military FA 2015/1 Science 84 Zhang Dongshui 張東水 PLA Second Artillery Force VMR 2015/1 85 Cheng Jie 程杰 PLA Navy VA 2015/1 86 Chen Jianfeng 陳劍鋒 PLA Military VA 2015/1 Region 87 Lan Weijie 蘭偉杰 PLA Hubei Provincial Military VA 2015/1 District 88 Liu Hongjie 劉洪杰 PLA General Staff Department VA 2015/1 89 傅怡 PLA Provincial FA 2015/1 Military District 90 楊衛澤 Jiangsu Province VP (AM) 2015/1/4 91 馬建 Ministry of State Security VP 2015/1/16 92 陸武成 Province VP 2015/1/23 93 Chen Hongyan 陳紅岩 PLA Air Force VA 2015/2 94 Wang Sheng 王聲 PLA Air Force VA 2015/2 95 郭正鋼 PLA Zhejiang Provincial VA 2015/2 Military District 96 Si Xinliang 斯鑫良 Zhejiang Province VP 2015/2/16 97 許愛民 Jiangxi Province VP 2015/2/17 98 Jing Chunhua 景春華 Hebei Province VP 2015/3/3 99 栗智 Uyghur Autonomous VP 2015/3/11 Region 100 仇和 Yunnan Province VP (AM) 2015/3/15 101 徐建一 China FAW Group Corporation VP 2015/3/15 102 廖永遠 China National Petroleum VP 2015/3/16 Corporation 103 徐剛 Province VP 2015/3/20 104 趙黎平 Inner Mongolia Autonomous VP 2015/3/20 Region Note: Data for civilian cadres from CCDI website at http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/jlsc/, and for military generals from the website of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at http://www.81.cn/. This list only includes those tigers that were

42 ISA Hong Kong 2017 Jia Li June 15 [email protected] publicly put under disciplinary inspection after the 18th Party Congress as of March 2015. Those who fell down in Hu Jintao’s era and received trial under Xi Jinping’s reign are excluded. Civilian rank levels: FS: full-state level; VS: vice-state level; FP: full-provincial level; VP: vice-provincial level. Military rank levels: VS: vice-state level; FMR: full-military-regional level; VMR: vice-military-regional level; FA: full-army level; VA: vice-army level. Auxiliary rank levels in parentheses: FM: full membership of the Central Committee; AM: alternative membership of the Central Committee; DM: membership of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Date: the day when the cadre was publicly put under disciplinary inspection.

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