Hunting Tigers and Swatting Flies: Xi Jinping's Anti-Corruption Campaign
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Copyright by Jeffrey Nides Loeb 2014 The Report Committee for Jeffrey Nides Loeb Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Hunting Tigers and Swatting Flies: Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Xiaobo Lü Patricia Maclachlan Hunting Tigers and Swatting Flies: Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign by Jeffrey Nides Loeb, B.A. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin December 2014 To the memory of my Mother Abstract Hunting Tigers and Swatting Flies: Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign Jeffrey Nides Loeb, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Xiaobo Lü Why has Xi Jinping, the President of the People’s Republic of China, launched one of the most aggressive anti-corruption campaigns in the history of the country? To answer this question, I constructed a database of over 100 high-level officials who have come under investigation during the campaign. I find that the campaign is disproportionately targeting officials from certain provinces. To understand why, I test a hypothesis that states: Xi is targeting corrupt officials from specific geographical regions for reasons unrelated to combating pervasive corruption, indicating factional politics are driving at least a part of the campaign. I find mixed support for the hypothesis. Out of the four provinces tested against the hypothesis, Sichuan is the only one that Xi appears to be targeting under the guise of anti-corruption. I put these findings in comparative perspective and find that the basic characteristics of Xi’s campaign are similar to Jiang Zemin’s 1995 anti-corruption campaign. This finding further supports the hypothesis that factional politics are driving at least a part of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. I conclude that Xi’s anti-corruption campaign—though exceptional in its intensity—is hardly a departure from China’s historical factional politics. v Table of Contents List of Tables ......................................................................................................... vii Chapter One: Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 Why Study Xi's Anti-Corruption Campaign? ................................................ 1 The Current Campaign ................................................................................... 2 Main Hypothesis ............................................................................................ 4 Methodology .................................................................................................. 8 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 13 Chapter Two: Hypothesis ...................................................................................... 15 Hypothesis One: Jiangsu Province ............................................................... 15 Hypothesis One: Sichuan Province .............................................................. 17 Hypothesis One: Shandong and Shanxi Provinces ...................................... 39 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 45 Chapter Three: Comparative Analysis .................................................................. 47 The 1989 Anti-Corruption Campaign .......................................................... 49 The 1995 Anti-Corruption Campaign .......................................................... 53 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 58 Chapter Four: Conclusion ..................................................................................... 60 Discussion .................................................................................................... 60 Bibliography ......................................................................................................... 64 vi List of Tables Table One: Investigated Officials’ Province-of-Birth and Level in Government ........................................................................................ 3 Table Two: Factional Affiliation and Work History of Officials Born in Jiangsu .............................................................................................. 16 Table Three: Factional Affiliation and Work History of Officials Born in Sichuan ............................................................................................. 18 Table Four: Factional Affiliation and Work History of Officials Born in Shandong and Shanxi ........................................................................................ 42 Table Five: China’s Anti-Corruption Campaigns in Comparison ........................ 48 vii Chapter One: Introduction The goal of this report is to understand why Xi Jinping, the President of the People’s Republic of China, has launched one of the most aggressive anti-corruption campaigns (fan fubai douzheng) in the history of the country (Wam, 2014). To this end, I test a hypothesis that may explain why Xi started the campaign. The analysis shows that factional conflict may be driving at least a part of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. Why Study Xi’s Anti-Corruption Campaign? The main reason to study the current anti-corruption campaign is to better understand the priorities of the new Chinese leadership. Several previous explanations have been advanced to explain anti-corruption campaigns. Manion (2004) argues that Chinese anti-corruption campaigns are a response to the inadequacies of regular anti- corruption enforcement mechanisms (Manion, 2004). This explanation suggests anti- corruption campaigns stem from a genuine concern about corruption. Gillespie and Okruhlik (1991) argue, by contrast, that anti-corruption campaigns can have goals completely unrelated to anti-corruption. Anti-corruption campaigns, for example, can be political instruments. They may be used to “delegitimize the previous regime, to purge opposition, to manipulate the political agenda, or to decrease the incidence of corruption and thereby legitimate the current regime” (Gillespie and Okruhlik, 1991: 82). Quade (2007) argues that anti-corruption campaigns are actually linked to macroeconomic policies. 1 Determining which—if any—of these explanations apply to the current campaign can shed light on Xi Jinping’s priorities as a leader. If he is serious about tackling corruption, this may be a sign he is a reformer. By contrast, a political purge masked as an anti-corruption campaign may indicate more of the status quo. A study of the current campaign can thus reveal clues about the direction of the regime under Xi Jinping. The Current Campaign Table 1 displays the province-of-birth and level in government of officials in the database under investigation for corruption. A review of the table reveals some interesting initial observations. First, according to the database, high-level officials born in Jiangsu, Shanxi, Sichuan, or Shandong provinces are disproportionally being put under investigation. These four provinces together have nearly more high-level officials under investigation than the combined total of the seventeen remaining provinces. Second, the geographic distribution of these four provinces is diverse. Jiangsu and Shandong provinces are located on China’s eastern coast, whereas Sichuan and Shanxi are situated inland. The provinces with the highest number of officials under investigation, in other words, do not appear to be geographically clustered. Third, three provinces—Shanxi, Sichuan, and Shandong—have a similar number of high-levels officials under investigation. Fifth, the majority of officials under investigation are at the provincial— rather than the national—level. However, these provincial level officials are still senior officials. Finally, the targeting of high-level officials from provinces located in the top- 2 half of the table—e.g., Zhejiang, Guangxi, Henan, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi1, etc.—appears to be limited in scope. National Level Provincial Level Provinces Officials Investigated (%) Official Official Zhejiang 1 (1.0%) -- 1 Guangxi 1 (1.0%) -- 1 Shaanxi 1 (1.0%) -- 1 Henan 1 (1.0%) -- 1 Heilongjiang 1 (1.0%) 1 -- Jiangxi 1 (1.0%) -- 1 Yunnan 2 (1.9%) 1 1 Hunan 2 (1.9%) -- 2 Anhui 2 (1.9%) -- 2 Inner Mongolia 2 (1.9%) 1 1 Jilin Province 3 (2.9%) 3 -- Beijing 3 (2.9%) 2 1 Liaoning 4 (3.9%) 2 2 Hebei 4 (3.9%) 2 2 Hubei 6 (5.8%) 3 3 Guangdong 6 (5.8%) 1 5 Jiangsu 8 (7.8%) 3 5 Shanxi 10 (9.7%) 1 9 Sichuan 22 (21.4%) 6 16 Shandong 11 (10.7%) 3 8 Unknown 12 (11.7%) 10 2 Total 103 (100%) 39 64 Table One: Investigated Officials’ Province-of-Birth and Level in Government2 Of all the patterns noted above, the most perplexing is this: why are high-level officials born in Jiangsu, Shanxi, Sichuan, or Shandong provinces disproportionally being 1 Interestingly, the targeting of officials born in Shaanxi province—Xi Jinping’s home province—is extremely limited, with only one official listed in the table as under investigation. 2 Sources for this data include biographical searches on the Communist Party of China Official Website (http://cpc.people.com.cn/), the CDIC website (http://www.ccdi.gov.cn/), Chinavitae.com, and Baidu.com. 3 put under investigation? To answer this question, I test a hypothesis, which is introduced in the next section.